


where it's headed

by BabyVillanelle



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Anxiety Disorder, Found Families, Graduate School, Internalized Homophobia, Literature Student Choi Seungcheol, M/M, Minor Character Death, Pining, Poetry, Professor Yoon Jeonghan, Rough Sex, Slow Burn, Teacher-Student Relationship, side mina/sana, the death is in the past and not any of the named characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:36:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 44,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27033550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabyVillanelle/pseuds/BabyVillanelle
Summary: Sometimes a family is a bisexual grad student with an anxiety disorder, an irritating poetry professor, two lesbians, a catboy obsessed with Wuthering Heights, and Wen Junhui.
Relationships: Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups/Yoon Jeonghan
Comments: 122
Kudos: 340





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This one has been a long time coming and I'm so glad it's finally out here!  
> Potential trigger warnings for: anxiety, panic attacks, student/teacher relationships, death of a family member, and internalized homophobia. If you have any questions about any of these please don't hesitate to message me on twt or cc! I'll put the links to those at the bottom.
> 
> This fic has a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7dBdg7fu7edZhu1QdxnOlz?si=6UNxjxkJRNuEmAsqGFOxdA), too!

“Ocean. Ocean—

get up. The most beautiful part of your body

is where it’s headed.”

\- Ocean Vuong, _Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong_

The first time Seungcheol remembers being really, truly anxious, he was only eight years old. His father had knelt down in front of him in his mother’s hospital room and handed him his newborn sister.

“Make sure you support her head,” his father said with a proud smile. Seungcheol looked down at Dahyun’s pink, blotchy face. He thought about the picture book his mom had read to him about babies. There had been a whole page dedicated to how frail baby’s necks were, how easily breakable they were.

Seungcheol had wordlessly handed her back to his father and hidden his shaking hands behind his back. His dad hadn’t said anything, just brought Dahyun back over to his mom.

He remembers that image, his father standing steady next to the hospital bed, rocking Dahyun in his arms and smiling at Seungcheol’s mom. Even now, when he pictures a “family”, he sees the three of them, his father at the center.

* * *

It’s still dark when Seungcheol wakes up, and the air in his bedroom is so cold he can almost see his breath. He fumbles around for his phone, which is buzzing insistently on his bedside table. The screen blinds him momentarily, but when his vision clears he sees he has four new texts from his boss.

_bagel_

_iced coffee_

_a nice shirt_

_please? :)_

He sighs and rolls over, typing out a response with one eye still closed. He pulls his blanket higher and tries to conserve some body heat.

_it’s 7:00_

The response is almost immediate. And expected.

_and?? I said please!_

Seungcheol groans. He doesn’t know why he bothered. He knows Jeonghan. If he’s awake now, it means he’s been awake all night. Otherwise, he wouldn’t hear anything from him until well after noon. And if he’s been awake all night, he’s working.

Seungcheol rolls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling.

“I don’t know why you put up with him,” his roommate, Jihoon, says. He’s watching Seungcheol fumble through his morning routine from his spot at their tiny kitchen table. He’s drinking his coffee and eating breakfast with the serene energy of someone who intended to be awake this early.

Jihoon’s a music teacher at a high school downtown, and he’s usually already left for work when Seungcheol wakes up.

“He’s not _that_ bad,” Seungcheol says, zipping up his winter coat. Jihoon just blinks at him over his morning coffee. Seungcheol sighs, “Okay, but I need this job for my tuition.” 

“Good luck!” Jihoon calls after him as he heads out the door. Seungcheol waves with one hand over his shoulder, his wallet in his mouth as he juggles his keys and his phone.

He types out a quick, spiteful text to Jeonghan as he walks down the stairs.

_is starbucks okay? Running late._

_is that a joke?_

Seungcheol chuckles. He’d expected that response. His phone buzzes again.

_hurry up I’m hungry_

He steps out into the icy New England morning just before 7:30. The cold air has a hint of ocean salt, and he can hear the seagull’s calls from the river. He burrows his face in the fur of his hood and begins the mile-long walk to campus, stopping only to grab breakfast for himself and Jeonghan.

Jeonghan Yoon, _Professor Yoon_ to his students, had not been what Seungcheol was expecting when he’d moved up north to get his PhD. 

The first time Seungcheol read one of Jeonghan's poems, he was in the breakroom at his shitty job in his hometown. He'd gotten his acceptance email a week before, along with his acceptance into the university's grad assistant program. The dean of the department had emailed him and asked if he'd be willing to work with a new professor.

He recognized Jeonghan's name but wasn't familiar with his work. He searched his name, read a poorly written Buzzfeed article from four years ago about "Everyone's New Crush: Stanford University's McArthur Grant Winner". There were a handful of photos of him at the award ceremony, at press events for his book of poetry. In all of them except his posed headshot, he was accompanied by an almost-as-handsome soft-cheeked man who the captions identified as "Yoon's fiancé, Korean model Kai Kim". He was always looking at Jeonghan like he thought he walked on water.

Seungcheol had clicked through, found Jeonghan’s poetry, and felt his world grind to a halt.

Sometimes you’re just going about your day, and you encounter the exact right words you need to feel whole, and for a few minutes, you’re half in love with the writer who wrote them. Seungcheol finding Jeonghan’s poetry was like that. It felt like one of those moments right at the start of a journey, the rumblings of something significant beginning. Gandalf at Bilbo’s door, Lucy’s hand brushing up against the fir trees in the back of the wardrobe.

When he got home, he’d stayed up half the night in his childhood bedroom, too big for his twin sized bed, reading and re-reading the poems and dying to know this person, this man who could write words that made him ache.

The Jeonghan that Seungcheol had met almost two years ago was not the same person from the Buzzfeed articles. He was newly single, far too skinny, and in a perpetually sour mood. They’d fought a lot, at the beginning, and Seungcheol had threatened to quit several times, but he was never quite able to. 

Jeonghan’s office is cramped and dusty, tucked away in a top-floor corner of Pembroke Hall. It’s packed with an assortment of mis-matched antique furniture that had already been there when Seungcheol helped Jeonghan move in a year and a half ago. Any space not taken up by the shabby couch or Jeonghan’s desk is filled by bookshelves of various shapes and sizes.

In the middle of all this clutter is Jeonghan, fast asleep on the threadbare rug, his laptop open next to him and his cheek pillowed on a heavily annotated edition of _The Portrait of Dorian Grey._

Seungcheol rolls his eyes and kicks the office door firmly closed behind him, the sound loud in the quiet office. Jeonghan wakes up with a jump, frowning at him. 

Seungcheol raises up Jeonghan’s coffee and shakes it, the ice rattling in the cup. Jeonghan grins sleepily and Seungcheol’s stupid, aching heart kicks in his chest. 

“You’re a lifesaver.”

Jeonghan sits up, wincing. He bows his head, rolling his neck from side to side. He holds one hand up without looking and Seungcheol smacks the coffee into it. He flops down onto the couch and unwraps his own bagel.

As they are sitting there eating, the sun starts to rise on the hill, turning the sky outside the windows an icy blue. Seungcheol licks cream cheese from his thumb and allows himself this moment, eating breakfast with Jeonghan.

“I brought you a shirt,” Seungcheol says when he’s finished, wiping his hand on his pants and dragging his backpack over. 

It’s one of his own, expensive and white and far too big for Jeonghan, but it was all he had. Jeonghan smiles his strange, inscrutable smile as he looks it over.

Seungcheol steps out into the hall while Jeonghan changes, and when he comes back, he’s faced with the troubling image of Jeonghan in his shirt, rolling the sleeves up to his elbows. He’s wearing it tucked into his high-waisted dress pants, and it’s a little too big for him, but somehow that makes it look better.

“How do I look?” he asks, turning side to side, arms raised.

_Exhausted. Overworked._

_Striking._

_Lovely. Always, lovely._

“Very professional,” Seungcheol says, and Jeonghan cuts him a strange look before laughing gently.

“Thanks,” he says, “The freshmen will notice if I wear the same shirt two days in a row.”

There are several things Seungcheol could say now, he could reprimand Jeonghan for sleeping in his office again, but that doesn’t exactly fall within his list of job responsibilities. To be fair, neither does waking up early and bringing him breakfast. He settles on something neutral, a subtle change in subject that directs him away from dangerous waters.

“Have you heard back from the department about the trip yet?”

Jeonghan and his other doctoral student, Sana, have had a research trip to Dublin planned for months, and in January Jeonghan requested more money from the department in order to take their whole 500 level Oscar Wilde class. It’s a long shot, but Jeonghan is dangerously persuasive and still very much the rising star of the department.

Jeonghan shakes his head. He’s fiddling with the front of Seungcheol’s shirt, trying to make it fall correctly on his skinny shoulders.

“I’ll convince them,” he says, “Don’t worry."

* * *

It’s just after nine when Seungcheol ducks out of Jeonghan’s office, leaving him and Sana there to discuss her dissertation. Sana ignores him when he goes, but Jeonghan looks up and gives him a tired smile before he shuts the door.

His own office that he shares with the other doctoral students in his year is down the hall, and when he pushes the door open, Mina and Wonwoo are already there, setting up for the day. They have office hours this morning, but it’s Friday, so it’s doubtful that any students will show up.

“Morning,” he says, and Mina returns his greeting. Wonwoo just waves without looking up from his desk.

Mina and Wonwoo have the desks for the morning, so Seungcheol takes a seat on the floor. It’s cramped in the small room. With his back against the wall under the bay windows, Seungcheol’s feet almost touch Mina’s desk.

There are other places he could go, of course. There’s the library, and Providence has more than enough quaint coffee-shops to choose from. But Seungcheol likes their tiny space, with its dark wood paneling and dusty stained-glass windows. There are plants in there that Wonwoo keeps alive somehow, and a worn woven rug that Mina found at a flea market. Above the desk Wonwoo shares with Jun and Sana, there’s a poster of the map from the original _The_ _Hobbit,_ its edges curling around brass thumbtacks _._

Last September, Wonwoo had assigned them each a half-shelf on the singular bookcase, marking them out neatly with his label-maker. It had taken only a few months for them all to overflow onto other surfaces. Mina’s poetry books were interspersed with Sana’s copies of Oscar Wilde’s works, some on loan from Jeonghan’s collection. Wonwoo had seven different copies of _Wuthering Heights,_ all in various states of disrepair. Jun’s shelf was packed with queer theorists and was encroaching on Seungcheol’s own sparse Ishiguro collection. 

Seungcheol takes out his laptop and opens the word document on his desktop titled _Dissertation Outline._ The black line of the text cursor blinks at him from the empty page. He quickly covers the blank screen with web pages full of his research.

Mina sighs and spins in her chair, fighting with her silky black hair until she gets it situated in a ponytail at the crown of her head. She looks down at Seungcheol, but he can tell she’s thinking about her writing. She has that faraway look that she only gets when she’s thinking too deeply about symbolism.

“Vaginas,” she says, frowning, and Seungcheol looks at her quizzically, “And flowers. Flowers as vaginas. Is that anything?”

Wonwoo laughs without turning.

“I think you’ve been spending too much time with Jun,” he says, scratching over something in his journal. Mina rolls her eyes and looks expectantly down at Seungcheol. He shrugs.

“I mean sure,” he says, scratching the back of his neck, “Isn’t that just a little played out?”

Mina pouts.

“Unless your heart was set on it,” Seungcheol says apologetically. Mina waves a hand at him.

“No, no,” she says, her gaze sliding off into the distance again, “You’re right. They’re just everywhere. Sappho can’t go three lines without mentioning a hyacinth, and Dickinson-”

“- _Bashful, sip thy jasmines as the fainting bee,_ ” Wonwoo recites. Seungcheol and Mina stare at him for a moment, and he looks around with a sheepish smile, “Mina’s been quoting that one in her sleep.” 

Seungcheol laughs as Mina makes a small squeak of protest.

“Why are you listening to me sleep?” she asks with a frown. Wonwoo spins and looks at her, pushing his glasses up his nose.

“You keep falling asleep on the couch.”

Sana breezes in then, catching the door just before it bashes into Wonwoo’s knees. She edges around him and perches on the edge of Mina’s desk with a smile and a cheery, “Good morning!”

Mina’s gaze returns from that faraway place and settles on Sana’s face instead. Seungcheol ducks his head to hide his knowing smile. There’s only one other thing that can hold Mina’s focus as well as long-dead lesbian poets.

“Professor Yoon liked my chapter,” Sana says with more than a hint of pride, scooting back on Mina’s desk so that just the toes of her pristine leather boots are touching the ground. Mina looks up at her with a toothy smile.

“That’s great!”

“Thanks!” Sana says, returning her smile, and for a moment, the two girls are somewhere else entirely, “He says I have enough material to finish my first chapter by March.”

Seungcheol’s stomach churns. He thinks of his own dissertation, which mainly exists in his mind and in the forty or so JStor articles he has downloaded to his computer. Back in October, he’d been ready to finally start writing, and his professors, Jeonghan included, had been excited by the direction his research was taking. But now it was February and he had made no progress.

A notification pops up on his computer and he sighs and takes out his phone. He texts Jeonghan more often than he texts his own mother, these days.

_meeting with department heads at noon_

_I’m aware._ Jeonghan replies. It’s a lie, and they both know it.

_really?_ Seungcheol texts back, gritting his teeth in irritation, _good! then i don’t have to tell you where it is_

_rude_

_I think you meant to say “thank you Seungcheol, what would I do without you, please tell me where my meeting is because I have forgotten”_

_Someone’s cranky today,_ Jeonghan replies, and Seungcheol wants to strangle him.

“Who’s Seungcheol texting?” Sana asks, and her eyes are on him, but her hand is on Mina’s shoulder, “He looks like he has a migraine.”

Wonwoo glances up for a moment and giggles.

“Oh, that’s his Professor Yoon face,” he says simply, peering at Seungcheol through his round glasses. Seungcheol frowns, putting up his middle finger at Wonwoo, which only makes him laugh again.

_someone got woken up at dawn because you needed a bagel_

_And I thanked you profusely for it_

_Did you? I don’t remember that_

Jeonghan just texts him back a very professional frowny face, and then,

_thank you thank you thank you Seungcheol you are the best assistant and the only man in my life now please can you tell me where my meeting is_

Seungcheol chews on his thumb, re-reading the text two or three times before replying.

_70 brown street, room 310_

_Thanks ;)_

Seungcheol puts his phone down on the floor, facedown, and tries to get back to work.

* * *

Providence is bitterly cold in February. It’s a wet cold, and icy winds blow rain in from Block Island sound. The wind is worse downtown, always cutting sharply between buildings, but Seungcheol still feels it as he walks the three blocks to Hope Street.

The café where Mina and Wonwoo work is a warm respite from the weather, and it’s before eight, so the only other customers there are a few commuters waiting for their morning coffee. Mina’s behind the counter, and she gives Seungcheol a small, queenly wave. Seungcheol beams at her and drops his bags at his usual table by the windows.

He waits until he’s the only customer in the store before going up and leaning on the counter, smiling sweetly up at Mina.

She thwacks him in the forehead with a takeout menu, which he takes as a greeting.

“Coffee, please,” he says, placing his travel mug on the counter and sliding it over to Mina. She never lets him pay, usually, but when she turns around to fill up his mug, he slips a five into her tip jar.

Wonwoo joins him after a few minutes, coming in from the cold and blowing on his hands.

Wonwoo is serious, beautiful in the way old things are beautiful – Greek statues, maybe, or a John Singer Sargent painting. Being around him is like being in a museum gallery. When he does speak, his voice is deep and slow, his words carefully chosen.

Back during their very first week together, Sana had whispered in Seungcheol’s ear that Wonwoo was someone to watch out for, that he’d been top of his class at Yale, that he’d already been published. 

Once he’d gotten to know Wonwoo, however, Seungcheol discovered that he was about as intimidating as a Pomeranian. Oh, everything Sana said was true, and more, but Wonwoo didn’t seem to care about any of that. He wasn’t particularly interested in the competitive side of academia. He loved his books, loved his Brontës, and that was basically it.

He’s delightfully weird, too, handwriting out everything in a notebook he carries with him, then typing it into his computer later. He has a horribly behaved cat named Branwell that he loves like a son, a fact that is driving Mina, his roommate, quietly insane. 

After setting his stuff down with Seungcheol, Wonwoo steps behind the bar with a practiced familiarity and makes himself a complicated, tiny drink. When he starts in with the milk steamer, Mina and Seungcheol lock eyes from across the room and start giggling.

Seungcheol and Wonwoo spend the morning together, working, hunched over laptops and papers rustling. At some point it starts to snow; big, clumpy flakes that hit the pavement and melt.

Seungcheol is doing work for Jeonghan; which mainly entails answering emails from nervous undergrads and grading papers. McArthur genius grant recipient or no, Jeonghan was still the youngest professor in the department, and he had gotten stuck teaching the 100 level course this semester. For Seungcheol, this mainly meant having to read a lot of terribly written papers and try to grade them fairly.

He gets to a particularly harrowing one, a ham-fisted attempt at psychoanalysis done on Sylvia Plath’s _Daddy_ , and he’s halfway through when he hears Wonwoo laugh.

“ _What_?” he says, and it comes out as a half-whine.

“You look like you’re about to cry,” Wonwoo says. Seungcheol looks up at him in desperation. He’s always worn his feelings close to the surface. He turns his laptop around so Wonwoo can see the paper.

“White boys should be banned from writing about Plath,” Seungcheol says, pressing his knuckles into his forehead and trying to massage away his growing headache. From behind the counter, Mina makes a strangled cry.

Wonwoo’s face falls as he reads, and by the time he reaches the end of the page, he’s frowning, his forehead pinched.

“Well. I see here that not only has he misspelled ‘Sylvia’, he’s also, um, claiming that she’s a misandrist?”

“What!” Mina squawks, spinning around and splashing milk all over the counter. Wonwoo shakes his head and hands the laptop back to Seungcheol.

He’s about to dive back in and demolish this kid’s overblown confidence when he gets an email from his dean with the subject line “Missed Dissertation Deadline?”.

His stomach clenches. The first draft of his chapter had been due on Monday. He’s had the deadline circled in his planner for weeks, but he still has nothing concrete to show his dean, nothing written other than a thesis statement and a handful of research notes. It’s bad, really bad, and he knows, but he’s tried to write and nothing comes out.

Panic claws at him, and he tries to remember the breathing exercises that his sister Chaeyoung had sent him. He watches the snow disappear on the sidewalk outside, eyes following one snowflake at a time, measuring out even breaths. Once he’s calmed himself back down, he closes his computer and pulls out his copy of _The Remains of the Day._ He’s trying to write about Marxism and class consciousness, which should be easy enough given the source material.

He gets a few pages in, underlining and making notes in the margins, when he hears a tap on the window. He looks up and right into Junhui’s eyes. Jun grins all crooked and goofy, exhaling his hot breath on the cold window, letting it fog up. He draws a heart, leans back and smiles, then goes back in and turns it into a dick.

Seungcheol rolls his eyes as he can hear Jun’s maniacal laughter through the glass. He comes in the front door, bell tinkling, and Mina looks up at him with a frown.

“Please don’t draw genitalia on my windows,”

“Oh, Mina,” Jun sighs wistfully, drumming his fingers on the counter, “Don’t stifle my creativity. Got any muffins?”

She tosses him a muffin and he catches it effortlessly, taking a big bite as Mina rolls her eyes. He drags a chair nosily across the wood floor, pulling it up to sit at the table with Wonwoo and Seungcheol. They make room for him, scooting papers into folders and moving books.

If Wonwoo is classical art, Junhui is modern, kinetic, a Rube Goldberg machine of a person. Just as beautiful, if confusing to look at, and harder to understand.

If Mina and Wonwoo were one side of the delicately balanced scale that was their cohort, Jun and Sana were the other. Mina and Wonwoo kept them all sane, and Jun and Sana kept them all on their toes. Seungcheol wasn’t sure where he fell on that spectrum, but he suspected it was somewhere in the middle.

“I need some help,” Jun says, mouth full of muffin as he rifles through his backpack, surfacing with his battered laptop, “I’m submitting a paper for a conference, but I need one of you to read it before I show Hannie so I don’t embarrass myself.”

“ _Professor Yoon_ ,” Wonwoo corrects without looking up from his notebook, “Don’t be weird.”

Jun sticks his tongue out at him, and he pretends not to see it. Seungcheol closes his book with a sigh. He likes Jun a lot, but once he’s around it’s hard to focus on anything else.

“I’ll read it,” Seungcheol says, holding his hand out. Jun slides his laptop in front of Seungcheol, smiling gratefully.

“I knew you’d say yes.”

“Just… do you mention taints in this one?” Seungcheol asks, scrolling through the first page. Jun is suspiciously silent. Seungcheol looks up at him, frowning.

“Only once!!” Jun protests, picking at his muffin sheepishly, “And it’s contextually important!”

Seungcheol pretends to be more annoyed than he is, and starts to read.

* * *

Jeonghan’s apartment is laughably nicer than Seungcheol’s. The first time he’d texted Seungcheol the address, Seungcheol had assumed he was kidding. It’s near campus, on the top floor of a 19th century row house near the Athenaeum. The building itself looks like it belongs in Covent Garden with its dark red brick and neat lines, black shutters flanking each window.

Jeonghan doesn’t make nearly enough money from the university to afford this place, so Seungcheol assumes that his parents help pay for it, but he’s never been brave enough to ask. Jeonghan doesn’t ever really talk about his family. Seungcheol knows he’s an only child, knows his parents are wealthy New England academics. His father is retired now, but he used to work at their college. That’s about all he knows. 

At the building’s front door, he kicks the snow off of his boots. He climbs the stairs and lets himself in, shifting his bag of groceries to his other arm so he can unlock the door. Jeonghan had the key made for him back in August, dropping it into Seungcheol’s hand without a second glance and explaining that it was for emergencies only.

“For emergencies only” had become “come do research in my living room, If I’m in this office for another hour I’m going to scream” which had slowly become “you can use my kitchen anytime”.

And if the days where Seungcheol “needs” to use Jeonghan’s kitchen just so happen to coincide with the days when Jeonghan is the most stressed, they don’t talk about it.

“Hey!” Seungcheol calls out into the apartment, and gets no response. He rolls his eyes. He walks into the kitchen and deposits the groceries on the counter before leaning through the door into Jeonghan’s office.

Jeonghan’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, his papers spread out in semi-circle around him, an uncapped highlighter in his mouth. He’s got his pajamas and his glasses on and it’s something Seungcheol has seen a hundred times over, but it still bowls him over.

“Hey,” he repeats, quieter this time. Jeonghan looks up and smiles and Seungcheol thinks he could survive on that alone, “Have you eaten?”

Jeonghan shakes his head, still smiling. Seungcheol frowns at him. Jeonghan pulls the highlighter out of his mouth and rolls it in his hand.

“What’d you bring?” he asks, his eyes wide and teasing. One day Seungcheol will deal with the fact that Jeonghan had obviously been expecting him. What that means is beyond him, right now. 

“Stuff for fried chicken,” he says, and Jeonghan smiles.

“Brilliant,” he says brightly. 

“Have you noticed you only compliment me when I bring you food?” 

“Do you need more compliments?” Jeonghan asks with a curious tilt to his head. Seungcheol feels outmaneuvered. Sometimes conversations with Jeonghan are like this, a chess game where Seungcheol is still trying to learn the rules.

“It’ll be ready in half an hour,” Seungcheol says lamely, and Jeonghan laughs. 

He goes through the motions of preparing the chicken easily, music playing in his headphones. It’s an old recipe, one his mom taught him when he first learned how to cook, and he’s made it countless times since then. It was Chae’s favorite, and what his youngest sister wanted, she got.

When he’s cooking, everything else falls away, and he can just focus on the movement of his hands. He starts some rice cooking and preheats the oven to roast some broccoli. When he’s breading the chicken, he hears Jeonghan’s voice from the doorway.

“Did you ever consider being a chef?” he asks, one hand on the doorframe. Seungcheol wonders how long he’s been standing there. There’s something about the slant of Jeonghan’s shoulders that says it’s been longer than a few moments.

Seungcheol doesn’t know what to make of that, so he turns back to the counter, dredging a piece of chicken in egg and dipping it into the breading.

“No,” he says honestly, “Why?”

He hears Jeonghan cross the room, sit at the small table in the corner.

“You always look at home in the kitchen.”

Seungcheol looks over his shoulder at him, and Jeonghan is looking back at him, curiously.

“Thanks?”

“Oh, that one wasn’t a compliment,” Jeonghan says, turning in his chair and putting his chin on the back, watching Seungcheol with a startling focus he usually reserves for nineteenth century novels, “Just a fact.”

Seungcheol turns back to his food. For a few minutes, the only noise in the kitchen is the sizzle of the oil in the pan. Then Jeonghan sighs and starts talking about the conference he’s attending this weekend with his best friend Joshua, and Seungcheol feels the world snap back into place around him. This is familiar territory, what they _should_ be talking about.

Seungcheol sets a plate in front of Jeonghan, who grins appreciatively and starts eating, talking in between bites about Oscar Wilde. Seungcheol listens and smiles at all the right places, nodding encouragingly.

“My request got approved,” Jeonghan says later as Seungcheol puts on his coat. He freezes with his hand on his zipper. He looks up with wide eyes and Jeonghan is actually smiling.

"For Dublin?" Seungcheol asks, and Jeonghan nods, his smile widening, “No way. And you waited all night to tell me?”

Jeonghan shrugs.

“I forgot,” he says casually, but his eyes are shining. Seungcheol can tell he’s proud of himself, “You’ll tell the kids?”

“Yeah, of course,” Seungcheol says, “Jun’s gonna be so excited. He hasn’t stopped talking about flying hawks since you first mentioned Ireland.”

“You’ll help me plan the trip?” Jeonghan asks, which is his way of asking Seungcheol to do it himself, but Seungcheol is so excited for once that he lets it go.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says. For just a moment, they're not professor and student, they’re just a pair of kids with a secret, leaning in and laughing in Jeonghan’s front hallway.

When Seungcheol thinks about how he’s gotten here, how if he had the chance he’d go back and warn himself away from Providence, from Jeonghan. But he knows, too, that even if he had gotten a warning about Jeonghan, he would have taken one look at Jeonghan’s face and known that all of it was going to be worth it.

* * *

The old wood of the staircase complains as Seungcheol climbs to the third floor. Whenever it rained, their old building got creakier, and the damp-dust smell that hung around got stronger. 

He unlocks his apartment and shakes his red hands to warm them up. His knuckles are still stiff with cold. Jihoon is nowhere to be seen, but there are traces of him in the kitchen. A stack of plates and a half-full pot of coffee in the machine, still hot.

Seungcheol pours himself a cup and wraps his hands around the mug. Outside the window, the rain pours down harder, echoing against the glass.

Once he’s warm, Seungcheol makes his way carefully up the spiral staircase in their living-room. He’d laughed, the first time he’d seen it, a strangely elegant piece in an otherwise drab one bedroom. It was more of a hinderance than anything, and its presence meant that they had nowhere to host guests, but they rarely had guests anyway.

Seungcheol pokes his head up into the loft and taps his knuckles on the hardwood floor in lieu of knocking. Jihoon rouses from his spot on the bed and waves him up.

The rain is louder here, pinging against the roof and running down the skylight in thick rivulets. This was the compromise. Seungcheol got the room with a door, and Jihoon got the skylight and the view of the river.

He’d built a passable studio up here over the past year and a half. Seungcheol sits down at the desk where Jihoon keeps his mixing equipment. 

“What are you listening to?” Seungcheol asks, nodding at Jihoon’s headphones.

He pulls them down around his neck and smiles his tight-mouthed crooked smile.

“Listen,” he says, “Unplug these.”

Seungcheol unplugs the headphones and lets the song filter out into the loft. It’s peaceful, fits the mood of the day with heavy synths and elegant echoing tones. Seungcheol nods.

“This is good,” he says, “Yours?”

Jihoon shakes his head, his smile spreading.

“One of my students,” he says with more than a hint of pride, “I’m helping her with her senior project.”

Seungcheol whistles, “She’s almost as good as you.”

“I know, right?” Jihoon agrees without any irony. He lays back, pillowing his head on his arm and watching the grey sky through the skylight, “I barely touched this. She’s gonna get in wherever she wants.”

Seungcheol smiles as he takes a drink of his coffee. Jihoon is more invested then the average high school music teacher, but that dedication is one of the things that Seungcheol loves most about his best friend.

“You look like shit,” Jihoon says, unprompted, squinting at Seungcheol, “You work too much.”

He does that, sometimes, he’s too blunt and it leaves Seungcheol reeling.

“Look who’s talking,” Seungcheol says, gesturing at Jihoon’s computer, “It’s Friday night.”

Jihoon sits up, leveling Seungcheol with a rough look.

“Up,” he says, waving a hand at Seungcheol, who gets up out of the chair and sits on the bed instead. Jihoon takes his spot at the desk.

Seungcheol wonders if he should leave, if the conversation is over, but then Jihoon speaks.

“I do this because I love it. And I know when to stop.”

“I love my job,” Seungcheol bites back, too harshly. Jihoon puts his hands up.

“I didn’t say you didn’t. Just- “ he pauses, choosing his words carefully, “Make sure you’re pushing yourself because its what you want,” he pauses again, watching Seungcheol’s face curiously, “Not what he wants.”

There’s no need to explain who _he_ is. Jihoon’s never liked Jeonghan.

“He needs me,” Seungcheol says, his voice small. Jihoon looks at him for a long moment, then turns back to his computer screen. Jihoon’s just worried about him, and he doesn’t blame him. Seungcheol knows he looks exhausted. But that’s his own doing, not Jeonghan’s.

“I want to hear that again when its finished,” he says, gesturing at the computer screen. Jihoon just nods. Seungcheol heads for the stairs.

“Get some sleep,” Jihoon says over his shoulder before Seungcheol disappears around the curve in the stairs. Seungcheol laughs.

“You, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/bloombloompowie) | [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/bloombloompowie)


	2. Chapter 2

What Seungcheol remembers most about the summer his dad got sick is the silence. He doesn’t remember being told, just that they all _knew._ The silence was so large it filled up the house, pushing Seungcheol and his sisters outside into the heavy heat of the Virginia summer. He still remembers the image of Dahyun and Chaeyoung, rolling around on the trampoline like kittens while he sat in the grass, pulling up clumps by the fistful.

His mother left his sisters with a neighbor and took Seungcheol to say goodbye to his father. She gripped the steering wheel and told him that she didn’t want the girls to have to see their father like this. Seungcheol remembers thinking, _What about me? Why do I have to see him?_

Instead, he had said nothing, just wordlessly reached for his mother’s hand across the console, something he’d seen his father do. She looked at him, surprised, then smiled sadly and took his hand, squeezing it tight. 

* * *

It’s late February and Jeonghan is gone all weekend, at some conference up in Cambridge, and Seungcheol was supposed to have some time off to himself.

Instead, first thing Friday morning, he gets an email from a panicked undergrad needing help with his paper on _Persuasion_ and has to meet him in the library for an hour. Then he has to walk the three blocks back to Pembroke Campus and meet with the director of the English department about the budget for their trip to Ireland.

By the time he meets up with Sana by the bridge on College Street, he’s exhausted. Sana loops their arms together and babbles away happily about her day as they walk by the river. They’re meeting the rest of the cohort at a bar in south Providence, and when he opens the door, the rush of warm air feels good on his frozen cheeks. It’s only Seungcheol’s second winter in New England and he’s still not used to the cold. He’s shivering, even in his puffy coat, scarf and hat.

He’s barely able to keep warm, but he feels overdressed. There’s an undergrad by the bar in shorts and sandals. Seungcheol shivers just looking at him.

Sana comes in behind him, wrapping her arms around herself. When that doesn’t work, she presses her ice-cold hands to either side of Seungcheol’s exposed neck. He squeals but lets her leave them there because he’s a good friend, dammit.

“Do you see them?” Sana asks, getting up on her tiptoes, using Seungcheol’s shoulder as leverage.

It’s too crowded to see anyone, so Seungcheol sends a text to the group chat that they’re there. As soon as the text is delivered, Jun’s head pops up over the back of a booth in the corner and he waves them over excitedly.

Sana slips through the crowd easily, and Seungcheol follows her carefully, apologizing as he goes. She sits down next to Mina and pats the empty space next to her for Seungcheol.

Sana happily chatters away to Wonwoo across the table while Jun goes to get them more drinks. Over Sana’s head, Mina gives Seungcheol a little smile and wave. He grins back, reaching over to squeeze her arm.

Jun bumps into someone on his way back to their table, a tall, willowy girl in an oversized men's sweater and artfully ripped jeans. She speaks to him enthusiastically, gesturing with her hands, finishing up with a peck on his cheek before she floats away back into the crowd.

"Who was that?" Sana asks, taking her drink. Her eyes are wide and curious, which Seungcheol knows by now means trouble.

Sana’s nosiness is a leftover reflex from her Upper East Side private school days. Jeonghan once told her that it was a good habit for a writer to have, and she had turned bright pink and refused to shut up about it for days.

"I'm not sure," Jun says, looking around for the girl again, then shrugging, "I think she was one of my roommates."

"You _think_?" Sana says incredulously. Jun just smiles mysteriously.

"I have a lot of them," he says by way of explanation. It's not, really, but it’s the best they're going to get.

As far as Seungcheol knows, Jun lives in a co-op in East Providence, just over the river from his and Jihoon's place.

"Within spitting distance of Gingerbread Island," Jun had said once, and Seungcheol had assumed he was being insane until he looked at a map of the area, and lo and behold, there sat Gingerbread island, right in the middle of the river.

Seungcheol leans back in the booth and drinks his beer as Jun and Wonwoo argue over some small detail in _Jane Eyre._ Wonwoo keeps adjusting his glasses and slapping his hand on the table, Jun leaning in and insisting on his point with a half-smile on his face, so it’s hard to tell if he’s flirting or fighting. 

Mina takes her well-worn set of Bananagrams out of her backpack and they play a few rounds, and Seungcheol relaxes a little bit more. Sana and Wonwoo get into a comically heated argument about whether or not they are allowed to play their own names as words, and Seungcheol lets himself lean back against the booth. He and Mina share a delighted smile over Sana’s head, while she points a peach-colored manicured finger accusingly at Wonwoo, her big eyes shining.

Jun tries to intercede on Wonwoo’s behalf and Sana rounds on him, and soon the three of them are shouting and also kind of giggling and it’s all around very cute and definitely drawing the attention of the other people in the bar.

Mina reaches around Sana’s back and pats Seungcheol on the arm.

“I’m glad you came,” she says, “I was worried about you.” 

"Ah, don’t worry about me,” he says, stretching, “I’m always fine.”

He grins at her, and she takes a moment to respond, instead just looking at him, studying his face in a way that reminds him of his sister Dahyun. She could always read him so easily. Finally, though, she returns his smile, shoving him playfully.

“Stupid,” she says, giggling, “Go get us another round.”

“Me too!” Sana says, “I wanna come!” 

Seungcheol makes a show of standing up and offering Sana his arm, which she takes daintily. As they wait by the bar, Sana gets approached by a nervous guy who offers to buy her a drink. She smiles sweetly and shakes her head, ponytail swinging.

“No thanks,” she says, leaning forward slightly, cupping a hand around her mouth and whisper-shouting, “I’m a lesbian!”

She smiles again, encouragingly, as the guy wanders off, looking confused. She appears to forget him immediately, turning to Seungcheol.

“How’s the professor?” she asks. Seungcheol rolls his eyes to cover the jolt of adrenaline he gets just thinking about Jeonghan.

“Annoying,” he says, and Sana sighs.

"You're so lucky."

"What?" Seungcheol asks, bewildered.

"You're _lucky_ ," Sana repeats, "He's only like that with you, you know. I can't get him to relax around me. He's been my mentor for almost two years and he's only ever professional with me."

"And you want him to be...more annoying?" Seungcheol asks, handing his credit card over to the bartender. There’s a strange pride he gets from her words. If he’s honest, he likes being the only one that can get through to Jeonghan.

"Yes!" Sana says, slapping her hand on the bar for emphasis, "You're the only one of us that like, actually knows him."

"You're not missing out, trust me," he says, taking his card back and collecting their drinks. Sana takes the ones he can't carry, "He's like, I don't know. He's kind of like a spoiled kid, sometimes."

Sana's giving him a curious look when he turns around.

"You don't mean that," she says, taking her seat next to Mina again, handing her a beer and sliding the other one across the table to Wonwoo, "I see the way you are with him."

"With who?" Jun asks, taking a sip of his drink.

"Our lovely Professor," Sana says, sweeping stray hairs off of her forehead. Seungcheol watches Mina follow the action with her eyes.

"Ohhh," Jun says, in a tone that sets Seungcheol's nerves on edge, "Are we talking about this now?"

"Talking about what?" Seungcheol asks, taking a sip of his drink. He can hear his heart pounding in his ears.

"You know, your _thing_ , with Professor Yoon," Jun says, waving his hand at Seungcheol. Seungcheol feels pinned by Jun's sharp gaze. Jun might be strange, but he's not stupid, and he has moments of startling clarity, "Well its less of a _thing,_ I guess. That makes it sound sexy. Which, y'know, I'm all for. I love sexy things. But this thing would be less sexy and more of a 'he could get fired and blacklisted from ever working in academia again' thing."

He stops to drink and there's a moment of silence at the table that cuts Seungcheol right to his heart.

_They know._ _They know. They know and they hate you._

Seungcheol bites the side of his tongue. He tastes salt in his mouth. Jun doesn’t know anything, of course, because there is nothing to know. All there is, is Seungcheol, alone, loving Jeonghan more than he knows what to do with.

_I see the way you are with him._

" _Jun_ ," Mina says, gentle but admonishing. Seungcheol wants to hug her.

"Sorry," he says, running both hands through his dark hair, messing it up. He sounds genuine, like he doesn't know he's making Seungcheol sick, "Rambling. I know you're not like that. I just meant your _thing._ Your ‘not-sexy’ thing. You guys have a bond. He's _nice_ to you."

"He's nice to _me_ ," Mina chimes in.

"Everyone's nice to you, Mina," Sana says with a grin, "You're adorable."

Mina makes a little surprised “o” with her mouth, raises her hand to cover it.

Seungcheol knows Jun is joking but he still can’t catch his breath. His head is swimming with the alcohol. Another five seconds of silence and they'll know, but he can't think of anything to say.

"Ah-hah!" Mina says suddenly, startling him. She sets her phone down on the table, taps her fingernail on the screen, "Look! The official rules say no proper nouns. So, Sana was right. No names."

"Let me see that," Wonwoo says, snatching the phone and skimming the words on the screen. Jun sets his chin on Wonwoo's shoulder and reads along with him.

Seungcheol lets out a breath. He cuts a glance over at Mina, who just smiles at him.

At the end of the night, Seungcheol volunteers to escort a happily tipsy Sana back to her apartment. She talks to him about her dissertation, an article she’d found that day, spinning so her powder blue coat fans out around her like a cape

She’s walking quickly next to him, talking with her hands, and doesn’t seem to mind too much when he doesn’t have anything to add. When they stop in front of Sana’s building, a new high-rise downtown, complete with valet service and a doorman, Sana squeezes both of Seungcheol’s hands.

“Thanks for walking me back,” she says, “I should make you a t-shirt that says _Protector of Lesbians_ on it.”

“Sleeveless?” Seungcheol asks, his eyebrows raised.

Sana’s laugh is bright and loud.

“You know it.”

She goes to turn and pauses.

“Did Mina have fun tonight?” she asks, a small line appearing between her eyebrows.

"Yeah,” he says, “Yeah, Sana, of course she did. Why?”

Sana just shakes her head, her sweet smile returning to her face. She points at Seungcheol, 

“Text me when you get home, yeah?”

Seungcheol starts his walk back to his apartment, and even though he’s done it a hundred times before, he finds himself winded before he even reaches the base of College Hill. He crosses back over the river and pauses, looking up the steep brick sidewalk in the dark. He’s exhausted. He could cut around the hill, which would make for an easier walk, but would add twenty minutes onto a fifteen-minute walk.

Across the street from him, the Athenaeum looks more like a cement tomb than a library in the dark. He can see the first row-house on Jeonghan’s block. He reaches into his jacket pocket, feeling the familiar weight of his keys. He does have a third option.

He lets himself into Jeonghan’s empty apartment, hangs his coat by the door and carefully unties his boots, setting them upright in the shoe rack. He makes his way through the dark apartment in his socks. He navigates through the rooms by memory, with some help from the moon and the streetlights outside.

He pauses in the doorway to Jeonghan’s bedroom and looks at Jeonghan’s bed, hastily made. He’s so tired, his bones ache. He considers, briefly, just climbing into Jeonghan’s bed, but that feels like a step too far. He sighs and pulls the door shut.

He spreads out on the couch instead, and he can feel the slow pulse of a hangover beginning as he closes his eyes. It takes him a long time, but he finally falls asleep. 

* * *

Seungcheol wakes up slowly the next morning. He’s uncomfortable, his back aches, his head hurts, and he’s far too hot. He opens his eyes to a tangled mess of blonde hair and freezes. He’d definitely fallen asleep alone. Now he’s on his side on the couch, one arm under his head, the other wrapped around the person in front of him.

He knows it’s Jeonghan without moving. He’d recognize the slope of his shoulders, the curve of his ears anywhere. Seungcheol doesn’t know why he’s here, and he’s afraid that if he moves, if he makes too much noise, he’ll wake Jeonghan up and this moment will vanish.

He stays still, his arm around Jeonghan’s waist the only point of contact between them. He blinks hard in the morning sun, his eyes still sticky with sleep. The back of Jeonghan’s head is less than three inches in front of him on the pillow and all his sleepy body wants to do is pull him closer, bury his nose in his hair. He breathes slowly, careful not to make any noise. All he can smell is Jeonghan; new flower buds, citrus and spice. 

Jeonghan hums in his sleep and wriggles his body closer to Seungcheol’s. Seungcheol had been holding himself so tightly that the movement startles him and he jolts.

 _Fuck_ , he thinks, as Jeonghan freezes in his arms. He’s definitely awake now. He stretches, cat-like, and rolls over, facing Seungcheol on the pillow.

He eyes Seungcheol with sleepy curiosity, like he can’t remember how they’d ended up here, either.

“Hi,” Seungcheol says, feeling slightly stupid. Jeonghan smiles, though, so he tries for a smile back, even though he can feel his heart pounding in his throat.

“Good morning,” Jeonghan replies, his voice scratchy and deeper than usual.

“I- I fell asleep on your couch,” Seungcheol says slowly.

_What the fuck is happening?_

“I can see that,” Jeonghan replies, a slight smirk playing on his lips.

“You weren’t supposed to be here,” Seungcheol explains, raising his eyebrows apologetically.

“I got bored,” Jeonghan says with a little yawn, “I made Joshua drive me home.”

“That was nice of him,” Seungcheol says. Even in Jeonghan’s apartment, the February air is cold on his face, but Jeonghan’s skin is warm under his hand. He remembers, in a vague, sleep-addled way, that he’s not supposed to be touching Jeonghan like this. Not supposed to be touching Jeonghan at all. He doesn’t move his hand.

“He’s a nice boy,” Jeonghan says, his voice regaining its usual light, airy tone. He pauses. They’re quiet for another minute.

“It was cold.”

“Huh?” 

“When I got back,” Jeonghan explains, “It was cold in my room. You’re really warm when you sleep, did you know that?”

Seungcheol swallows and nods, his eyes wide. Jeonghan wriggles even closer. They’re almost nose to nose now, and Seungcheol can’t focus on Jeonghan without going cross-eyed. Then Jeonghan ducks his head down, burrows his face against Seungcheol’s neck, his hands curled into fists against Seungcheol’s chest.

Jun’s voice from the night before; _'he could get fired and blacklisted from ever working in academia again'_

“ _It’s just us_ ,” Jeonghan whispers. If Seungcheol was an inch further away, he wouldn’t have been able to hear him. Seungcheol feels like he’s been dropped in ice cold water. A rush of air, a gasping breath, “Can we do this? Just for a little longer?”

Jun’s voice again, _I know you’re not like that._

Seungcheol does the only thing he knows you’re supposed to do when you’re drowning; he holds on tight to the one thing keeping him afloat.

There are a few minutes of silence, where the only sounds are their gentle breathing and the occasional car driving past outside. It’s agony. He’s been painfully, acutely aware of what is and isn’t allowed when it comes to Jeonghan. This, holding him, feeling the warmth of Jeonghan’s breath on his collarbone, is definitely _not_ allowed. And yet, here he is. Alive and warm and so close he can’t catch a breath that doesn’t smell like him.

He clears his throat, then cringes away from how much he sounds like his father.

“Why now?” he asks, his voice a murmur. He’s terrified Jeonghan won’t answer him. He’s terrified that he will.

Jeonghan mumbles something against Seungcheol’s skin that he can’t quite hear, but the movement of his mouth gives him goosebumps.

“Hm?” Seungcheol asks. Jeonghan turns so he’s laying on his back, Seungcheol on his side next to him, his back against the couch cushions. Jeonghan stares at the ceiling like it’s wronged him.

“I wasn’t bored. At the conference. Kai was there,” he says, finally. He sighs. The words take a moment to sink into Seungcheol’s sleepy brain. When he finally does understand, it’s a punch to the gut. He pulls his arm away from Jeonghan, and the water closes over his head.

“ _Kai_ Kai?” Seungcheol checks, “Your ex-fiancé Kai?”

That one word snaps them both out of whatever bubble they were pretending existed around them. The room comes into startling focus around them. Seungcheol wishes he hadn’t said it. He wishes Jeonghan hadn’t said anything at all. He wishes he hadn’t asked.

“Yes,” Jeonghan says, and he sounds miserable. Kai had broken Jeonghan’s heart. Seungcheol knew that much and not a whole lot more. Jeonghan didn’t talk about it, and Seungcheol certainly did not want to ask. Seungcheol’s never seen him this shaken, his shoulders hunched inwards and his eyes red and puffy.

“Did you talk to him?”

“No,” he says, looking everywhere but at Seungcheol, “I fucking ran away.” 

“Do you, um,” Seungcheol says, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Jeonghan says, quickly, “It’s so stupid, you know. My whole life, I’ve had my writing, but since we broke up, it’s like, _poof,_ no more words. I haven’t written a thing since California.”

Then he sighs and closes his eyes. He breathes in and out a few times, and when his eyes open, his guard is back up, Seungcheol on the wrong side, once again. He smiles devilishly, “You should make us breakfast.”

He starts laughing and Seungcheol reluctantly joins in after a moment. If Jeonghan wants to be a brat again, Seungcheol can play along.

When Seungcheol rolls Jeonghan off the couch and onto the floor, it’s only half a joke. 

* * *

When Seungcheol was very young, he pictured his future to be just like his father’s life. He would marry a nice woman, have a few kids, and provide for them, protect them. It seemed like a pretty good deal to him. Maybe he would work with his hands, do something he could show off proudly.

After his father died, he didn’t really think about the future much at all. He was more concerned with making sure his sisters were fed, making sure they had someone there waiting for them when they got off the school bus at the end of the day. His future was them.

The details changed again as he got older. When he was at the college, he knew he wanted to be a professor, to work with books, to teach. His girlfriend at the time, Seulgi, helped him admit that he wanted it. At its core, though, his image of the future stayed the same. He would get a job, he would meet a girl, he would have children, he would provide for them.

For a while, he thought that girl would be Seulgi. Sweet, funny Seulgi that looked so cute in his hoodies and made him laugh so hard he cried and always encouraged him to go after what he wanted. It was easy to picture, proposing to her, buying their first house, growing old together. Easy. It would have been so easy.

But Seulgi got a job on the other side of the world and Seungcheol wasn’t ready to leave his mom, his sisters. Chaeyoung was still so young, when he graduated from college. She needed him. So Seulgi left. And he missed her. And it hurt, but he had healed. 

He’s come so far, now. He’s here, getting the degree he always wanted. And still, there’s a future that he sees, a kind of man he’s always wanted to be. It’s just that that man, that idealized version of manhood that he’s always reaching for, that man is not gay.

When he lays awake at night and aches for Jeonghan in a way that he’s never ached for anyone, for anything, he doesn’t picture that future, that faceless spouse, that first home, the children and the yard and the dog. What he wants, what he sees, when he imagines them together, is the way they are, already. Jeonghan laughing at him, bickering with him, shouting at him. He pictures the quiet mornings when there are bagels and coffee and them. He pictures the late nights, the ones where Jeonghan works until he falls asleep at his desk with his glasses on and Seungcheol has to wake him up and walk him home.

He pictures them alone, away from where the rest of the world can see them, in bed, under covers, or in his office, door locked and lights low. He wants to be impossibly close, to be inside him, to be surrounded by him. He wants to kiss him, to taste him, to press him into his skin and never let go. The want becomes an ache, permanent, part of him like a tattoo, a brand.

After he meets Jeonghan, that old version of his future doesn’t work anymore. Anything else pales in comparison. The wife and house and children seem like paper dolls.

Whatever future he imagined, for so many years, is gone. In its place is this man. The most beautiful person Seungcheol has ever seen. His mind is magnificent, capable of work that Seungcheol could never dream of. He’s clever and sharp and deadly observant. He sees Seungcheol better than any person he’s ever known. And he’d done it without trying. They unfold around each other, showing the other person the worst parts of themselves, and the best parts, too. They are the same, they are opposites.

Nothing about this is easy, but at the heart of it all there is this: the man Seungcheol is becoming bears no resemblance to the man he always thought he would be. He’s still trying to figure out if that’s a good thing or not. 

* * *

Weeks pass and nothing changes.

Seungcheol doesn’t expect it to, he knows Jeonghan better than that. 

Three days before they leave for Ireland, Seungcheol is grading papers in the grad student office.

“Time?” Sana calls from the floor, where she’s highlighting passages in a book. The sun is setting, pink and gold in the bay windows behind her. Those windows, with their iron latches and heavy wooden frames, are the only thing that make the little office look like it belongs at an Ivy League school.

Seungcheol looks at his watch.

“Not yet,” he says, flicking his wrist.

Sana sighs and goes back to her book. For the next ten minutes, the only sounds in their cramped office are turning pages and the scratch of Wonwoo’s pen.

Seungcheol checks his watch again. 4:59. He waits for the second hand to make its way around.

“Aaand,” he says, “Now.”

“Finally!” Sana shouts, throwing her book in her bag and standing up to stretch. She eyes Wonwoo still bent over his desk and snatches the pen out of his hand.

“Hey!” he complains, “I was in the middle of a sentence!”

Sana shakes her head and pockets the pen as Wonwoo continues to reach for it.

“Uh-uh,” she says with a wag of her finger, “You know the rules. It’s Thursday.”

Wonwoo sighs, relenting and closing his notebook. There’s no real point in arguing with Sana anyway. Seungcheol unlocks the bottom drawer of his desk, sliding it open and pulling out three bottles of red wine he’d stashed there earlier in the week. Wonwoo gets out their “wine glasses”, which are just five old coffee mugs that they’d each brought from home. Sana hands over the corkscrew from her bag.

Jun and Mina arrive, still smelling like winter, while Seungcheol is pouring the wine. Jun pulls his gloves off with his teeth, shoving them in his pockets and grabbing his mug, a thrift store find that says _Women Want Me, Fish Fear Me_. He takes an unappetizingly big gulp before flopping down into Seungcheol’s desk chair.

Mina goes to sit in Wonwoo’s vacant chair, but Sana protests,

“Come sit with me, Mina! I haven’t seen you all day!”

Mina smiles shyly and sits on the rug next to Sana, who immediately wraps her arms around her. Mina pats her head, her cheeks slightly pink.

After a few minutes, Seungcheol gets up to go to the bathroom, and as he’s heading back, he sees a light under Jeonghan’s office door. He knocks, then pushes it open.

The room is lit only by the little antique lamp on Jeonghan’s desk and the fading light from the window. Jeonghan is standing over his desk, writing something down. He’s in a dark grey peacoat and crème-colored scarf, and his hair is styled more neatly than usual. Seungcheol just looks at him for a moment, the shadows under his cheekbones, the bow of his lips. He looks exhausted, darker circles under his eyes, but still beautiful.

“Hey,” Seungcheol says softly, and Jeonghan looks up in surprise. He gives him a tired smile, and something sparks to life in Seungcheol’s chest, “Are you going to the faculty dinner?”

“Yeah,” Jeonghan’s voice is quiet, “I was heading there now. I forgot my phone. Then I had an idea for this paper I’m editing and I needed to…”

He holds the pen up in his hand, miming writing with it. Seungcheol takes a step into the room and closes the door behind him.

“Are you alright?” he asks, and Jeonghan responds with a tight-lipped smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

"Of course,” he says, sliding his phone into his pocket and straightening his scarf. His muscles are tensed. He looks back up at Seungcheol and rolls his eyes, “Oh, come on. Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” Seungcheol asks, trying to arrange his face into a neutral expression.

“With your _puppy_ eyes,” he says, exasperated. He sighs, then slumps his shoulders, “Fine. I fucking hate these dinners. They’re always the same. I’ll be the only person there under forty-five, and they’ll all either talk to me like I’m a child or they’ll ignore me entirely.”

“Come have a drink with us before you go,” Seungcheol blurts out, “We’re in the grad office. It’s Thursday. We drink red wine and Jun makes us have intellectual discussions.”

Jeonghan gives him a curious expression, halfway between awkward and amused. Seungcheol worries, briefly, if this was the wrong thing to say. Then Jeonghan smiles.

“Thank you, but I should go to this,” he says, and Seungcheol flushes, “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Seungcheol nods, lump in his throat. Jeonghan leans over and flicks off the desk lamp. For a moment, before Seungcheol opens the door, the two of them are in total darkness. The sky outside has darkened to the purple of a fresh bruise, outlining the bare branches of the trees in the quad.

When Seungcheol gets back to the office, Sana sits upright from where she’d been leaning on Mina and smiles at him. 

“Have some wine,” Wonwoo says, standing to offer him the bottle. Seungcheol grabs his own mug, a relic from his childhood, bought on his family’s one and only trip to Disney World, worn from too many trips through the dishwasher, but the faded writing under Mickey and a Christmas tree still reads; _Happy Holidays 2001_.

They go through two whole bottles, laughing and talking, and Seungcheol finally lets himself relax.

Another hour and another full bottle later, Jun is reclined on the rug, next to the office fern and its heavy clay pot. He’s ranting about his chosen topic of the evening, his mug of wine pressed to his forehead and his eyes closed.

“I just think-,” he says, pausing for effect, “There’s this whole… mythos around masculinity, and it eats away at us, destroying those parts of us that are different from the norm.”

“Okey, sure,” Sana giggles from Mina’s lap. Mina’s playing with her hair gently, working out tangles and smoothing it flat.

“No, I get it,” Seungcheol says, rolling the wine bottle between his palms, “He’s being pretentious, but he’s got a point. Its suffocating, especially when you’re a kid.”

“A helpful addition from our resident straight boy,” Sana teases. It’s not mean, and as far as she knows, it’s true. It’s playful, the kind of thing she’s said a hundred times, and he’s never bothered to correct her.

He’s never known what to say, before now. He’s only ever talked about being attracted to men twice, once to his sister, Chaeyoung, and once to Seulgi. It’s not something he has the words for, quite yet. But he tries, anyway. 

“I’m not.”

Jun’s already started speaking again, but he pauses when Seungcheol responds. Everyone pauses.

“Not what?”

Seungcheol blushes. He rests his elbows on his knees and looks down at the rug.

“Not straight,” he says.

Sana’s whips her head around to look at him. There’s an excruciatingly long moment of silence, an inhale, an exhale. Seungcheol can feel Jun’s eyes on him but he can’t bring himself to look at his face.

Sana’s smile spreads slowly across her features. Mina just nods, her eyes a little misty. She’s always been a bit of an emotional drunk.

Wonwoo offers him an awkward thumbs up and a crooked smile, and Seungcheol wants to cry with relief. He’d always imagined coming out as a moment that was horribly solid, tangible and weighted. Instead, here, with these people he knows so well, he feels as though he has set down a heavy burden.

Jun pinches his cheek, then tries to pepper kisses all over his face, but Seungcheol whines in protest, pushing him away, his face burning. 

“That’s all of us, isn’t it?” Jun asks, looking around the room like he’s doing a headcount, “We’re all gay now?”

“Just because he didn’t mention it before now doesn’t mean he hasn’t been-“ Sana points out, but Jun silences her with a hand.

“I know, I know,” Jun says, “But it’s more fun to say that way,” he sighs dreamily, “I like it. We’re all up here in our gay little treehouse, avoiding our responsibilities and carving out our own space within this historically heteropatriarchal institution.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Seungcheol says, and they all laugh, raising their cups. They clack together, a mix of ceramic and plastic, and he feels lighter than he has in a long, long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/bloombloompowie) | [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/bloombloompowie)


	3. Chapter 3

The moon that scores his face perfects yours.  
What are we to make of this?  
The sky is filling with black flowers.  
Still, love insists on the ludicrous: nicknames, kissing in the street.

My darling, what is it, this mulish faith that wheels and gleams  
between us? A trace of headway? Recovery from loss?  
That pair of hawks overhead?

 ** _-_** Rebecca Wee, _Heart's Itch_

Even though he had planned most of it himself, the trip didn't feel real until he was sitting in the aisle seat, Jeonghan next to him, looking anxiously out the window.

The evening had gone about as well as expected. Jihoon had driven them to the airport in his car and spent most of the time refusing to make eye contact with Jeonghan, who he had begrudgingly agreed to pick up at his apartment. Jeonghan had acted oblivious to Jihoon's obvious distaste for him, but Seungcheol had seen the muscles in his jaw tighten more than once.

Sana had picked up the rest of them in her car, which she was leaving in the airport lot for the week and a half they would be gone.

Jeonghan had picked up their tickets at the counter and led everyone through the airport. They all had trailed behind him, Seungcheol bringing up the rear, tired, and looking forward to a chance to relax.

Now that they were actually on the plane, though, Jeonghan had started to look tense, drawn so tight he looked like he might shatter. Seungcheol angles his body so Mina and Sana can't see Jeonghan from across the aisle and asks, voice quiet,

"Are you okay?"

Jeonghan doesn't look at him, eyes instead on the seat back ahead of him.

"I don't do well on planes," he says finally, and Seungcheol has to bite back a smile. Jeonghan looks at him coolly, "What? Is that funny?"

"A little," Seungcheol says, eyes sparkling playfully. Jeonghan pouts, slumping in his seat, "I didn't know you were afraid of anything."

He means it to be gentle, teasing, but the look Jeonghan gives him is heavy and strange.

"Can I do anything?"

Jeonghan shakes his head, and the look is gone.

"Do you want to hold my hand?" Seungcheol teases, putting his hand, palm up on the armrest between them. Something about seeing Jeonghan off campus makes Seungcheol feel bold. They could be anyone on this plane, could be the same age even. Jeonghan has six years on him, but looking at him now, small in a crimson hoodie, you’d never guess.

Jeonghan looks down at Seungcheol’s hand and rolls his eyes, pouting a little.

"M'not a baby," he mumbles, crossing his arms and slumping down in his seat. Seungcheol chuckles, taking out his phone and headphones. Jeonghan is watching him, his eyes narrowed and slightly unfocused.

"Here," Seungcheol says, handing Jeonghan one headphone. He stares at it in his palm like he's not sure what it is, and then painfully slowly, he raises it up and fits it in his ear. Seungcheol’s never seen him this afraid before. Never seen him afraid at all, not really. Nervous, sure, but actually scared? Never.

The plane starts to rumble underneath them. When the wheels come up off the pavement, Jeonghan startles and grabs Seungcheol's offered wrist, right underneath his watch. Seungcheol jumps at the contact, but Jeonghan just holds on tighter. Seungcheol looks down at Jeonghan, but he's got his eyes closed again, his brow furrowed.

Jeonghan is delicate, skinny shoulders and quiet, teasing voice. But those hands. Strong tendons, long fingers, well-rounded nails. Seungcheol's forearms are not small, but Jeonghan's hand wraps around him easily, his fingernails digging into the soft skin of his wrist. Seungcheol feels it as acutely as if Jeonghan had wrapped a hand around his throat.

Out the window, he can see the wing of the plane, extended out over the ground beneath them, a mixture of grey and green and brown. The plane dips, then turns, and all he can see is the ocean, black in the fading light.

* * *

They land in Dublin in the early morning. They come into the city over a wide expanse of green, crossed back and forth with the grey lines of crumbling stone walls. Seungcheol is the only one who sees it. Jeonghan is asleep against the window, his head pillowed on the folded plane blanket. Sana and Mina are asleep too, Sana curled against Mina’s shoulder. Seungcheol peeks between the seats and sees Jun and Wonwoo, sleeping in the row behind him.

The morning is quiet, everyone else standing around sleepily while Seungcheol gets himself an Americano and finds their luggage. 

There aren’t many other tourists around as they make their way into the city. It’s too cold, too early in the season, and St. Patrick’s Day is still a few weeks out.

They get to their lodgings around eight, an old bed and breakfast that Seungcheol had found online. Mina is endeared immediately, excitedly pointing out the bright yellow door that stands out against the ivy-covered bricks. The décor inside is appropriately quaint, patterned crème wallpaper, heavy gold curtains and overstuffed couches. The owner looks like she belongs there, an elderly woman with a pronounced brogue and hands that are always in motion.

When Seungcheol had been picking out where they should stay while they were in Dublin, Sana had suggested an upscale hotel downtown. She had even offered to get them a discount, casually dropping in the fact that she had gone to school with the owner’s daughter. But Seungcheol had wanted somewhere more comfortable, somewhere more authentically Irish. He’d reached out to one of the grad students that Jeonghan would be working with at Trinity, a kid named Chris, and he’d enthusiastically recommended this place. 

The owner kindly offers to make them breakfast, since she is worried that they didn’t eat well on the plane. Jun and Wonwoo happily accept, their faces lighting up at the mention of home cooked food.

“Now,” she says, patting around her apron and producing four sets of keys, “For the rooms.”

Jun and Wonwoo are together on the top floor, and Mina and Sana are sharing a room on the first floor. Jeonghan and Seungcheol each have their own room, and they’re sharing a landing with Mina and Sana.

The floors and ceilings are old and thin, and as Seungcheol puts his stuff away, he can hear movement from the rest of the group, each in their own rooms.

After they get settled, Seungcheol grabs some breakfast with Jun and Wonwoo. The other three never reappear, probably asleep again. The boys head out into the rain, Jun leading the way downtown, to a library he wanted to see.

Jun seems bright and curiously unaffected by the seven-hour flight. Wonwoo and Seungcheol share tired smiles as he bounds along next to them, easily skipping around puddles and excitedly pointing out landmarks. The library itself isn’t far, and when they get there, they follow Jun from dark room to dark room, where aging manuscripts are housed under lit glass. After about a half an hour, the lack of sleep on the plane starts to catch up with Seungcheol and his eyelids start to droop. He grabs onto Wonwoo, and they excuse themselves, ducking back outside and dashing through the rain to the cafe next door, giggling breathlessly, giddy and tired. 

They order tea and drink it at a table in the back, nibbling on the little cookies that came with it. Seungcheol is grateful for Wonwoo in moments like this, for way he’s comfortable with silence, the way he allows the people around him to just exist, without needing anything from them.

Across the table from him, Wonwoo removes his glasses and wipes them on his shirt, clearing them of residual raindrops. He rifles through his backpack and comes up with his well-worn leather notebook and a pen.

“Do you mind if I..” he asks, shaking the notebook like a smoker asking permission to light up.

“Please,” Seungcheol says, waving a hand, and Wonwoo gets to work. He looks like Seungcheol’s very own Korean-American Lord Byron, drinking tea and writing hastily, raindrops drying in his mop of thick black hair. Seungcheol takes out his own book, the copy of Ishiguro’s _Never Let Me Go_ that he’s had since college. The spine is cracked, and notes fill most of the margins. He loses himself there, in those pages he’s turned so many times before, for a little while.

Jun comes to collect them when he’s had his fill of the library. They meet up with the others for dinner at a restaurant near the bed and breakfast. Everyone is still out of it, sleepy and jetlagged. Sana yawns as she goes over her emails that she’s been exchanging with the grad students at Trinity. She goes over them with Jeonghan, pointing out important details as Mina sits beside her, occasionally offering her bites of food that she absentmindedly accepts. 

* * *

Seungcheol facetimes his mom with the living room Wi-Fi. She’s making dinner, and she puts the phone on the countertop to talk to him. Chaeyoung waves from the background, where she’s sitting at the kitchen table, working on her homework. Even though he’s tired, he still recounts the day for his mother, who listens attentively. Seungcheol is selfishly glad that the others aren’t down here, can’t hear the naked enthusiasm in her voice, the eager excitement of someone who’s never been able to afford to travel.

Seungcheol’s had to try to keep that same wonder from appearing on his face, from revealing him as the former poor kid he is.

He watches his sister fold her stick-insect legs underneath her as she reads and he thinks of Mina, perched on the edge of a chair in the library, highlighting a passage from Dickinson.

He hangs up and suddenly Mina is there, as if he summoned her, peeking around the doorframe.

“Hey,” she says, “Do you want to watch a movie with us?”

He’s more than a little surprised. Mina and Sana were the first two of all of them to become friends. They were usually inseparable. Seungcheol spent time with Mina often, but never with her and Sana. There was an unspoken rule in their group. They all knew that Mina and Sana time was sacred.

“Oh, um,” he says, “I wouldn’t want to intrude on your movie night.”

“ _No_ ,” she whispers, too quickly. She looks back up the stairs before stepping into the room, slipping her fists into her sweatshirt pocket and pressing down, “I kind of _need_ you to watch a movie with us.”

Seungcheol sits up, his attention completely on her now.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” she says, but her hands twist together in her pocket, “Um, Sana’s just been weird, lately.”

Seungcheol waits. Sometimes Mina needs a minute to collect her thoughts when she’s nervous.

“I don’t know how to explain it. It’s she’s afraid of silence. But more than usual,” she sighs, “Just, can you come? I’d feel better if you were there, too. It might make it less awkward.”

“Yeah, yeah, Mina, of course.”

The girls have the room next to his, across the landing from Jeonghan’s room. Mina opens the door, holding it open for him.

“Hey,” she says to Sana, who’s on the bed, her chin propped up on her knee, a terrycloth headband in her hair, “I found a stray downstairs. Is it okay if he joins?”

Sana looks almost relieved when she sees Seungcheol, happily waving him over to the bed, patting the spot next to her.

Before the movie is half over, Sana falls asleep on his shoulder. He taps Mina’s arm and points over at Sana, a finger pressed to his lips. She’s a heavy sleeper, always passing out in the library, on the floor of their office, on Mina and Wonwoo’s couch. They’ve all learned to work around her, cover her with a blanket, shift her into a more comfortable position.

Seungcheol sits up carefully, holding Sana’s head up with one hand, then laying it gently on the pillow, extracting himself from the bed. Mina tosses a distracted “ _Goodnight_ ” his way as he pulls the door shut behind him, but her eyes are on Sana.

He gets back to his room and climbs into the unfamiliar bed, and his phone buzzes. He scowls at himself for the way his heart leaps at Jeonghan’s name.

_what’s the haunted doll count in your room? i’ve got four._

He’s attached a chilling photo of an antique doll, its hair in crispy ringlets and its eyes too wide and too blue. Seungcheol laughs.

_none in here, i think you hit the jackpot_

_great. what about my face said to Nancy “oh he looks like he belongs in the room with all the dolls”?_

_maybe she’s hoping to add you to her collection_

_a harrowing thought_

There’s a pause, then Jeonghan texts him again,

_is the implication there that im pretty_

And. Well. That’s new. Seungcheol’s face flushes,

_yes, just like a little victorian ghost boy_

_that’s actually the exact look I was going for_

_Goodnight, Jeonghan_

_Sweet dreams :)_

Seungcheol shoves his phone under his pillow, his heart pounding. He thinks of Jeonghan, less than ten feet away, in his own bed. He wonders if he’s smiling, too. He wants to see it, to touch his fingers to his lips, feel it for himself.

* * *

They meet one of the boys from the humanities department at Trinity in front of the arts building the next morning. Felix is barely twenty, a collection of dark freckles on his cheeks and button nose. His brown eyes go wide when he’s listening intently, and he’s always listening intently, especially to Jeonghan, who he’s looking at with admiration as he leads them across campus.

It feels strange to share Jeonghan like this, to watch people outside of their little world admire him as much as they do. He doesn’t get recognized on the street, but on college campuses, in English departments across the globe, he’s practically a household name, the genius child of academics, the award-winning poet, the young professor.

They get to the Oscar Wilde Center, housed in the Wilde’s childhood home. Sana gets giddy, squeezing Seungcheol’s arm and squealing a little. He laughs.

Felix hops up the steps to the front door and taps a key card, letting them into the building. Another boy materializes at his side, this one shorter but broader than Felix. He introduces himself as Chris, the grad student Seungcheol has been emailing. He’s calmer than Felix, more subdued and surer of himself, but Seungcheol still catches him watching Jeonghan with the same boyish reverence.

Felix takes their coats, and Jeonghan catches Seungcheol’s eye, again, as he shrugs out of his peacoat and unwinds his scarf. He’s in a chocolate brown sweater today, wide knit, and a high collar that serves to make his neck look long and elegant.

The house is lovely, if a bit dusty. The first floor has been renovated to house classrooms and a research library, but upstairs is preserved, a museum of Wilde’s young life. Chris’s accent is melodic as he explains the resources they have here at the center, the opportunities for study. They follow him upstairs as he points out various portraits of family members that hang on the wall.

“The Wilde’s were both well-educated,” he says as he pushes open a door off the upstairs landing, leading them into a bedroom with high ceilings and windows overlooking the park across the street, “They wanted the same for their children, of course. Oscar was sent to boarding school at ten, so this bedroom was really only his on holidays.”

Seungcheol is trying to pay attention, but he’s still jet-lagged, and the heat is turned up too high in the old house, making him feel sleepy and sluggish.

Chris changes subjects, starts talking about Oscar Wilde's mother. At the mention of Jane Wilde, Sana lights up, and Seungcheol can tell she's dying to say something, the way her mouth keeps opening whenever Chris pauses in his speech.

"Seungcheol mentioned that you might have some of her letters on site?" Sana asks hopefully.

They keep talking and Seungcheol glances over to where Jeonghan is standing by the windows. In the sporadic sunlight, it's more obvious how tired he is. He looks thinner too, the lines of his face sharper than usual. He’s texting someone and frowning down at his phone. Finally, he gets a call, and ducks out into the hall to take it.

Over by the door, Sana is talking with her hands, explaining something to Chris, who is doing his best to answer.

When the tour is finished, Sana leads them to a cute restaurant close to campus, a recommendation she got from Chris. There’s some sun, finally, in between the rain showers, but it’s still far from warm.

Jeonghan is still in his oddly quiet mood, hanging back, so Seungcheol matches pace with him. They have lunch at a cafe on Wicklow Street that has bright yellow walls. The food is delicious and hot and seems to bring Jeonghan out of his sour mood. 

All day afterwards, Seungcheol notices that Jeonghan is touching him more, leaning on him when he reaches for things, brushing crumbs off his jacket, tapping their feet together under the table and it makes Seungcheol feel like he's constantly buzzing, an electric fence set to high.

He’s terrified of misreading things, but he wants so badly to be right about this, wants Jeonghan to be wanting him back.

* * *

Chris is waiting for them outside the Oscar Wilde center the next morning, smoking a cigarette. When he sees them coming, he drops it and stamps it out, waving them over.

"Sana! Darling!" he calls out when she gets close enough, and gives her a warm smile that she returns enthusiastically, walking quicker to get to him, "I've got a gift for you!"

She bounces on the balls of her feet as he gets his keycard out to let them into the building.

"Is it very old papers you found in a basement?" 

Chris laughs, "They were just in the archive, but yes."

Chris leads her to the reading room in the back of the building. Jeonghan has a meeting with a professor whose class he's doing a guest lecture in later in the week, and he vanishes up the stairs while the rest of them are talking. Seungcheol turns to ask him a question, and he's gone, second floor stairs creaking in his wake.

Felix materializes again, padding down the stairs that Jeonghan had just gone up. He's even more painfully adorable than Seungcheol remembers. He brings to mind images of stable boys, freckle-faced and mussed blonde hair, curling around his ears. 

He's been recruited by Chris, apparently, to lead the rest of them on a tour of Trinity. He shows them around to all of the "good stuff", the Book of Kells, the library. Jun sits out the Book of Kells tour because, "Catholicism makes him itchy".

* * *

At the end of the day, they meet up at a pub Jun chooses off of his phone, one near the high street. It’s packed with tourists, and he recognizes most of the knick-knacks on the wall from the gift shop at the airport. It’s odd, too manufactured, but at least Jeonghan looks pretty in the fake candlelight. 

Seungcheol actually can’t keep his eyes off of him. Jun orders them a round of Murphy’s and white wine for himself, and Seungcheol gets sucked into a conversation with him and Mina. But his focus keeps sliding back over to Jeonghan.

Jeonghan is leaning forward in his chair, saying something to Wonwoo, laughing. His dark brown sweater is rolled up at the sleeves, his bony wrists exposed.

Wonwoo turns away, back to his own drink, and Jeonghan looks across the table and right at Seungcheol.

Seungcheol’s stomach free falls.

His embarrassed smile is a reflex, and it spreads across his face before he can stop it. But Jeonghan smiles back, and it’s the goddamn strangest thing, that look.

Jeonghan looks at him and it’s like they’re the only two people in the room. It cuts right to the heart of him, that look.

Seungcheol grins wider, a coy smile, teasing. He shakes his head at the ridiculousness of it all, huffing out a desperate laugh. Jeonghan gives it right back, a knowing grin, tongue on teeth.

Someone speaks, next to his ear, and Seungcheol hauls himself back, hand over hand. He turns and the sounds of the pub reach his ears again, clattering plates and raised voices. Sana’s next to him, hand on his arm, and she’s asking him something.

Jeonghan’s attention still burns in his periphery.

“Huh?” he says, and Sana whines, pouting and patting his arm impatiently.

“What are we doing tomorrow?” she asks, her voice already a little wobbly from drinking.

Across the table, Jeonghan gets up, and Seungcheol watches him slip into the crowd, reappearing by the bar.

“It was, um-,” Seungcheol says, “-Jun’s day to plan.”

He points at Jun, who lights up with glee, hooking his thumbs together and wiggling his fingers.

“Oh!” Mina says, leaning her head gently on Sana’s shoulder. Seungcheol feels Sana stiffen slightly next to him before she relaxes into Mina’s touch, “The hawks! I’m really looking forward to that, actually!”

“Me too,” Jun says with a sigh, “There’s an inherent queerness to birds of prey, don’t you think?”

Sana sits back in her chair.

“Here we go,” she says under her breath.

Over at the bar, Jeonghan is talking to someone, and Seungcheol doesn’t see who it us until the crowd shifts. It’s a boy, skinny jeans and knit sweater. He’s cute, definitely Irish, and completely focused on Jeonghan. He’s got an easy, quick smile, dimpled on one side.

Pretty, pretty, pretty. Just like Jeonghan.

Seungcheol can’t see the look on Jeonghan’s face, but in a lull in the music, he hears the high notes of Jeonghan’s laugh, and the pretty boy’s smile widens.

The hope that Seungcheol had started to gather around him crumbles.

What is he _doing_ here?

He needs to get outside, desperately. He stands, and everyone looks at him, surprised. Their attention makes him feel scrutinized, makes him feel even more alone, and he needs to get _out,_ needs to see the night sky.

“S-sorry,” he says, shakily, “Phone call.”

He pushes his way through the crowded pub towards the door without looking back at Jeonghan and the pretty boy.

Out on the sidewalk, there’s no night sky to look at, only low clouds reflecting the yellow haze of the city lights. He wishes he were back in Virginia. Early March in the country meant frost melting into dew in the morning, the first frogs of spring chorusing at night. It’s alive, vibrant green leaves and monstrous grey thunderclouds rolling down the mountains. Right now Dublin just feels gloomy, in comparison.

He crosses the street and turns the corner, and he’s back at the river. He crosses the bridge halfway and stands there, watching the water rise and fall against the stone sides. Out here in the open, the clouds are closer, hanging around him in a heavy, wet mist.

He’s not angry at Jeonghan. He has every right to smile at whoever he wants. He doesn’t owe Seungcheol anything.

Seungcheol just doesn’t hate himself enough to stay in the room while he does it.

He feels pretty fucking stupid, if he’s being honest with himself. He’s been showing his hand too much, recently. Letting Jeonghan see how he feels too often, because it felt so good to do, to see that spark of recognition he got sometimes. He’d started to convince himself that Jeonghan had actually-

 _No_ , this is better. He’d been getting too comfortable, had forgotten that they really shouldn’t, that their futures are at stake.

Just. Just.

There’s a horrible, selfish part of Seungcheol that wants to matter more than the rules. That says _if he wanted you, if he wanted you really, **really** badly, he’d risk it_. _Wouldn’t you?_

And then,

“Seungcheol?”

 _God._ That voice. Seungcheol would know it anywhere. 

“Are you okay?” Jeonghan asks, walking towards him with his hands in his coat pockets.

They could be in any time, out here on the bridge. The electric streetlights creating blurry orange circles in the mist could just as easily be gas lanterns.

Jeonghan’s looking at him with a grin and a burning look that Seungcheol’s never seen before. 

“I’m fine. You didn’t have to check on me,” Seungcheol says, but his voice sounds wrong, thick and heavy, “You could have stayed. If you were having fun, I mean.”

Jeonghan’s grin wavers, but his eyes are still intense.

“If you’re referring to my new Irish friend,” Jeonghan says, coming to stand next to him by the railing, “I think I pissed him off by ignoring every word he said after you walked out the door.”

Seungcheol churns those words through his mind, and what comes out the other end is just,

“Oh,” then, “I’m sorry?”

“He was boring.”

“He made you laugh,” Seungcheol counters. He hopes to god he’s not pouting. He’s probably pouting. 

“You were watching?”

Jeonghan’s being a terror and Seungcheol is in love with him. He notes these two facts simultaneously. Always true.

Seungcheol is usually so careful. He’s always been so careful. Careful with his sisters, careful with his schoolwork, his job, his future. But he’s tired. He’s tired and his skin feels too tight and he’s far from home and he needs something to hold onto.

All these things that he’s afraid of; losing his position, losing his mother’s approval, Jeonghan losing his job, they all seem less daunting from three thousand miles away. Compared to Jeonghan here in front of him, his breath coming out in puffs of fog, they fade into the background.

And there’s also this: Jeonghan followed him.

“What if…,” he starts, then pauses, wanting to say the right words in the right order, “What if we’d met like that, instead? At a bar, I mean. Instead of…instead of the way we met,” he finishes lamely, tossing the rest question out before he has a chance to stop himself. It comes easily, but it _feels_ like toppling over the guardrail into the darkened river below, “Would you think _I_ was boring?”

Jeonghan bites at dry skin on his lip, looking at Seungcheol with narrowed eyes like he’s trying to decide what his next move is.

“That depends,” Jeonghan says carefully.

“On what?”

“On a lot of things. Depends on how I was feeling that day,” Jeonghan says, “Depends on whether it was before or after Kai.” 

“Okay,” Seungcheol says slowly, “Let’s say it’s the summer after college, you’re drinking with your friends, and I walk up to you. What would happen?”

“What would you say?” Jeonghan asks, tripping him up. He’s being fussy, even now.

“Does that matter?!” Seungcheol says, unable to stop the last word from coming out in a whine. Jeonghan drives him crazy, sometimes. 

“Of course, it does!” Jeonghan insists, “How am I supposed to know how I’d respond?”

Seungcheol just stares at him in disbelief for a second. Jeonghan grins, raising his eyebrows encouragingly. Seungcheol looks him over, at his dark eyes and his cold-pink nose.

He can’t quite picture Jeonghan at twenty-two, only knows him as he is now.

“Fine. I’d um,” he stops to think, “I’d, probably apologize, for interrupting you. And then I’d tell you that you were beautiful. And then I would probably have apologized again.”

Jeonghan considers this for a while. 

“I think,” he says carefully, “I think I would have had a huge crush on you. And I would’ve teased you relentlessly until you either told me to fuck off or had sex with me.”

“Is that not what you did anyway?” Seungcheol says. Jeonghan looks shocked for a second, then throws his head back and laughs. His real laugh, not the controlled giggle he usually does in public. The one Seungcheol has lovingly referred to as his ‘goblin laugh’, and he’s only heard it a few times before, usually when he’s had a few glasses of wine, or they’re up late grading papers.

Something warm and bright pulses in Seungcheol’s chest. He giggles helplessly, a mix of euphoria and nerves making him jittery.

“Fair enough,” Jeonghan says, still giggling, “What’s the verdict? Are you going to tell me to fuck off?”

The “ _Or…?”_ goes unspoken, hangs in the air between them. Seungcheol picks. That’s the thing about jumping out into dark water. Once you’re already in the air, the rest is easy. You just have to fall.

“I’d go with the alternative,” Seungcheol says. Jeonghan slaps at him, playfully, no real force behind it.

Seungcheol just looks at him expectantly. Jeonghan pulls away, straightening up away from the railing where Seungcheol is leaning.

“You’re serious?” Jeonghan whispers.

“Yes,” Seungcheol says, and Jeonghan just stares at him, wide-eyed, “Hear me out. We’re on fucking vacation,” he gestures around them, his arms spread wide, “On the college’s dime, and -,” leans in close, mouth near Jeonghan’s ear, whispers conspiratorially, “ _Nobody knows us here_.”

Jeonghan ducks back, surveying him carefully. He’s never known Jeonghan to be this cautious. Then again, he’s never known himself to be this reckless.

“Are you _sure_?”

Seungcheol grins. He’s running on pure adrenaline, his heart thumping double-time.

“Yes,” he says, unwavering, in this at least. Offering himself up for Jeonghan to do with as he pleases, “I want you.” 

Jeonghan surveys him for a long few moments, biting on the inside of his cheek, considering. 

“I hope you know that this is,” Jeonghan says finally, stepping forward and gripping Seungcheol’s chin in one hand, “A colossal fucking mistake _.”_

He kisses him and Seungcheol gasps against his mouth. 

Seungcheol wants more, immediately, he can’t help it, but Jeonghan holds him in place, kissing him the way _he_ wants, slow and building.

Even just this is fascinating to Seungcheol, all the new ways he gets to know Jeonghan now. He knows him by the sound of his voice, the smell of his hair, the weight of his footsteps.

But by the curve of his spine? By the weight of him in Seungcheol’s palms, the dip of his waist, the taste of his mouth? Those are new.

There’s this one freckle on Jeonghan’s neck, right by his shoulder, and Seungcheol has seen it when Jeonghan wears low-cut shirts, but now Seungcheol presses his mouth against it, sucks. That’s new, and so is the way Jeonghan gasps, so, so quietly, and tilts his head to accommodate him.

“Time to go?” Jeonghan asks breathlessly.

“Time to go,” Seungcheol agrees. He fishes in his pocket for his phone, pulls it out behind Jeonghan’s back, caging him against his chest. The idea of letting go of him for long enough to order a cab is unthinkable. Jeonghan rests his cheek on Seungcheol’s shoulder. His hair is damp from the mist when it brushes against Seungcheol’s neck. 

Seungcheol reluctantly steps away from him when the cab arrives. They sit on opposite sides in the back, but when Seungcheol takes out his phone to tell the others they’re headed back, he has a text from Jeonghan.

_If we’re doing this, we should we have rules_

_Yeah, probably. Like what?_

Jeonghan is chewing on the side of his thumb. He texts Seungcheol again. 

_Rule one: this stays in Dublin. Whatever happens, we leave it here._

Right. The caveats. He adds his own rule, because he can’t handle the idea of the group knowing.

_Two: we don’t tell anybody_

_Obviously._

_Rule three: no feelings (important!!)_

* * *

Back at the bed and breakfast, Seungcheol waits on Jeonghan’s bed for him while he showers and tries not to psych himself out by overthinking this.

The fact that this is his first time with another man does occur to him, but honestly? He had thought that it would matter more. But at the end of the day sex is sex. What matters the most is that this is _Jeonghan_.

When Seungcheol sleeps with someone, he likes to figure out what it is that they want and give it to them. He has a feeling that figuring out what Jeonghan wants is going to be harder than usual. He could ask, of course, but he’s always liked a bit of a challenge and he doubts that Jeonghan would be forthright about it, anyway.

Seungcheol on the other hand, is fairly simple. He just wants Jeonghan, any way he can have him.

In the end, he stops worrying about it and just lets Jeonghan come to him.

Jeonghan comes out of the bathroom in a big sleep shirt that comes down almost to the bottom of the tiny shorts he’s wearing. At the sight of Jeonghan’s pale, skinny thighs, Seungcheol’s thoughts very quickly devolve from: _How can I make this experience as memorable as possible?_ to _How can I get Jeonghan to let me put my hands up his shorts?_

"Oh god," Jeonghan says with a laugh, dropping the towel he had been using to dry his hair and making his way across the room to the dresser, where the antique dolls he’d shown Seungcheol are lined up in a row, "I totally forgot. I am absolutely not letting Anabelle watch me get fucked."

He handles the dolls gingerly, picking them up with the tips of his fingers and hiding them in the top drawer of the dresser. He pauses to fix his hair in the mirror.

At first glance, he seems unaffected. It’s only because Seungcheol knows him so well that he recognizes what it means when Jeonghan subtly shifts his weight from one foot to the other. Back, and forth, slowly, almost like he’s swaying. 

Seungcheol’s impatient, sitting on the on the bed. He wants so badly to get up and wrap his arms around Jeonghan’s waist, press himself flush against Jeonghan’s back. But he makes himself wait. He sits on his hands and waits.

And, finally Jeonghan comes.

He plants himself in Seungcheol’s lap and Seungcheol marvels at the feel of him under his hands, the warmth of his skin as Seungcheol runs his palms up Jeonghan’s thighs, his fingertips just reaching under the hem of his shorts.

Jeonghan hums pleasantly, running a hand through his damp hair, sorting it so it all falls to one side. It’s another nervous tic Seungcheol recognizes that isn’t betrayed by the placid look on his face.

“Tell me what you want,” Seungcheol says, another offering. A promise, “And I’ll do it.”

Jeonghan laughs at that, his nose wrinkling cutely in that way that makes him look innocent and adorable and makes Seungcheol feel like he could rip a tree out of the ground with his bare hands.

Jeonghan puts a hand on the side of Seungcheol’s neck, cupping his jaw.

“You’re so good to me,” Jeonghan says, and it sounds like it hurts him to say.

Seungcheol shrugs modestly.

“You deserve it,” he says simply, his fingers reaching higher up Jeonghan’s shorts.

Jeonghan giggles again, breathier this time.

Seungcheol rubs his thumbs over the delicate skin of Jeonghan’s inner thighs. He shivers, goosebumps breaking out across his skin.

“Okay,” Jeonghan says, eyes falling shut, “Okay. You should definitely fuck me.”

Seungcheol leans in and kisses Jeonghan as a response. An emphatic yes.

He kisses him and holds onto him, squeezing his thighs until Jeonghan gasps in pain and he lets go.

“Sorry,” he mumbles against Jeonghan’s mouth.

“It’s okay,” Jeonghan says, “You can be rough with me. I can take it.”

“Oh, yeah?”

A directive. That, Seungcheol can manage.

“Put your arms around my neck,” Seungcheol says, and Jeonghan complies with a confused smile on his lips. Seungcheol moves his hands around under Jeonghan’s thighs, pulls him closer against his chest and stands up.

Jeonghan’s fairly light, but Seungcheol doesn’t go to the gym as often as he used to, so he’s not going to be able to do this for very long, but it’s worth it for the look on Jeonghan’s face.

“Holy shit,” Jeonghan says, and then he’s kissing him, pressing their bodies together, “Holy _shit._ ”

Seungcheol’s arms start to ache after a minute so he turns them and drops Jeonghan back onto the bed, a little rougher than he intended, but Jeonghan grins up at him anyway. Seungcheol crawls over him and kisses him, deep and slow.

He breaks the kiss only to pull Jeonghan’s shirt off, and then his own.

“You’re gorgeous, Jeonghan.”

“Thanks,” Jeonghan says, giggling again, “You’re not so bad yourself.”

Seungcheol can’t stop touching Jeonghan, wants his hands on his body always. He wants to see all of him, to taste all of him.

He must have been staring, because Jeonghan grabs his chin again, like he did on the bridge, forcing Seungcheol to look up into his eyes.

“Go get the condoms,” he commands, "My suitcase." 

Seungcheol doesn’t exactly _scramble_ off the bed, but it’s a near thing. He grabs his coat from the ugly upholstered loveseat in the corner and pats around in the pockets until he finds the lube and condoms. He tosses them on to bed as Jeonghan shimmies out of his shorts. 

Jeonghan wraps a hand around himself and Seungcheol can’t quite catch his breath. Jeonghan, hard and flushed, spread out on a bed for him, is not an image that he’s ever going to forget.

Jeonghan reaches for the lube and goes to put it on his own fingers, but Seungcheol stops him with a hand on his wrist.

“I can do that,” he says, his voice thick, “Let me. Please.”

He understands how to do this in principle, if not in practice. That doesn’t mean he’s prepared for how hot Jeonghan is inside, how tight he is around Seungcheol’s fingers. 

The noises Jeonghan makes are high and airy. And _loud_. God, he’s loud. Seungcheol’s thankful that they have the building to themselves, but he still can’t stop listening for the sound of feet on the stairs. 

He adds a third finger and Jeonghan throws his head back, bites down on a high-pitched whine. 

Seungcheol chuckles, “If anyone comes home, I’m gonna have to gag you.” 

The look Jeonghan gives him is withering, but it loses some of its power when Seungcheol thrusts in again, angling upwards, and Jeonghan has to muffle another whine. 

“Sh-shut up,” he gasps, his legs quaking, “And fuck me.” 

That undoes him a little bit, hearing those words in Jeonghan’s voice.

“Oh-okay,” Seungcheol says, settling back against the headboard, Jeonghan climbing back into his lap.

Jeonghan sinks down onto him with deliberate, calculated slowness. His long fingers squeeze too tightly around Seungcheol’s biceps, his eyebrows furrowed with concentration.

Seungcheol rolls his hips up to meet Jeonghan and then he’s fully inside of him and he’s shaking apart.

Seungcheol has always found this part to be intense, sharing another person’s body like this. He wants to say so many things, words swirling together inside his head. Wants to say _thank you for letting me do this._ Wants to say _thank you for trusting me_.

What comes out instead is just, “ _Fuck_.”

Jeonghan just groans in response, his forehead pressed tight against Seungcheol’s, his eyes squeezed shut.

“You’re. Fucking. _Big_.” Jeonghan mumbles, wet mouth millimeters from Seungcheol’s own.

“Sorry,” he says, feeling dumb, his brain moving at a snail’s pace.

“No,” Jeonghan says, shaking his head, “S’good, just. Gimme a second.”

Seungcheol kisses him gently, rubbing his back. Jeonghan’s cock is softer now, between their bodies, so Seungcheol takes it in his hand and strokes it.

Jeonghan whines, his breath coming in little bursts.

“You’re amazing,” Seungcheol says, wonder in his voice.

Jeonghan scowls at him for that, his eyes bleary and unfocused. He leans in and bites at Seungcheol’s neck. 

Fine. If that’s how he wants it, Seungcheol can do that too.

He drops his hands to Jeonghan’s waist, plants his feet on the mattress and fucks _hard_ up into Jeonghan’s tight heat. Jeonghan makes this punched-out mewling sound, his cock hardening in Seungcheol’s palm. Seungcheol couldn’t stop touching him if he tried, can’t get enough of him, can’t get close enough to him.

Jeonghan puts his hands on Seungcheol’s shoulders, shoving him back down into the mattress. He holds him there firmly, fingers digging into Seungcheol’s skin, and rides him, angling his body so Seungcheol reaches even deeper inside of him.

It’s breathtaking, watching Jeonghan roll his hips, take what he needs.

He won’t look at Seungcheol’s face, and Seungcheol wants to beg him to open his eyes, wants to beg him to look, look at them, together. Wants.

But Jeonghan keeps his eyes screwed shut, even as Seungcheol strokes his cock, even as he comes, hot, all over Seungcheol’s chest.

Jeonghan lets out a quiet cry, his lips parting slightly.

Seungcheol surges up and kisses him, cupping his face in his hands, pressing all the things he can’t say into his mouth instead.

_I love you. You did so well. I love you._

Jeonghan becomes another person entirely after he comes. He gets all boneless, and vastly more affectionate, wrapping his arms around Seungcheol, kissing him sweet and lazy. He hums contentedly into the kiss, rubs his nose against Seungcheol’s.

Seungcheol’s heart feels like it’s going to burst.

_I love you._

Jeonghan flops back against the pillows and drags Seungcheol with him. Stretched out, their bodies tangle together, and Seungcheol enters him again.

Jeonghan must be oversensitive, because he has to bite a scream into Seungcheol’s shoulder.

Seungcheol fucks him, fast and hard, without any real rhythm, while Jeonghan whines and gasps against his neck. He comes with his body pressed against Jeonghan’s, their skin hot where it touches.

As soon as the high of the orgasm crashes, anxiety crawls up inside his chest, rung by rung, until its clawing at his throat. He pulls out, rolls away, throws out the condom. Now he’s the one who’s afraid to look, afraid what he’ll see in Jeonghan’s eyes. 

When he does look, after he gets dressed, Jeonghan’s eyes are closed, his hands resting on his chest, rising and falling with his breath. He looks smaller than usual, vulnerable with his long legs spread; knees knobby. His hair is mostly dry now, and it's fluffy without any product in it. Seungcheol gets the overwhelming, protective urge to cover Jeonghan’s body with his own again, but he’s not sure if he’s allowed to touch him now.

Jeonghan opens his eyes slowly, and when he sees Seungcheol watching him, he smirks, arching his back, stretching, showing off, like he knows he’s worth looking at.

“I’m gonna shower again,” Jeonghan says, rolling out of bed, “You should probably go back to your room before everyone else gets back, yeah?”

Seungcheol knew that this was how the night was going to end, but that doesn’t make it any easier to hear.

“Y-yeah,” Seungcheol says, clearing his throat, “Yeah, totally. Good idea.”

Seungcheol lays in bed for a long time before he falls asleep. He hears everyone else get home, drunken footsteps uneven on the stairs. He hears someone, probably Mina, hesitate outside his door, before going to her room.

* * *

The next day is Saturday and nobody has to go study or teach, so Seungcheol, at Jun’s insistence, had booked them a tour of a hawk sanctuary south of Dublin. He’d been excited about it at the time, but now all he can think about his Jeonghan. He’d thought he’d known what it felt like to ache before, but now everything is amplified.

Jeonghan sits down next to him at the breakfast table and Seungcheol burns.

He watches the movement of Jeonghan’s hand, four fingers and then a thumb, as they sweep hair out of his eyes and behind his ear.

Seungcheol prepares himself a cup of tea to give his hands something to do, to stop them from wrapping around Jeonghan’s upper thigh under the table, just to check if he’s still real.

The only sounds are the clink of silverware against plates, the pouring of milk, the rain on the window outside. Nobody is speaking, and everyone looks like they’d rather be in bed. Mina and Sana had come down separately, and were now sitting across from each other, looking in opposite directions sleepily.

When they finally dash from the door to the awaiting tour bus, the rain is heavy on the hoods of their coats. Jeonghan sits up front with the tour guide, a chipper old man with a rounded, jubilant accent. He doesn’t once look back at Seungcheol, who climbs into the seat behind him, between Wonwoo and Jun.

The estate that the falconry school is based out of is grand, with rugged, beautiful landscaping, even if the trees are bare this time of year. They pull up a crunchy gravel driveway and climb out. After they’d made it outside the city and crossed over the ring of the M50, the sun had broken through the clouds, lighting up the mist in the fields. It looks like a fairy tale. It looks a little like home; old mountains worn to rounded hills over time, farms stretching between them, a patchwork quilt of greens. The tour guide leads them around the side of the building and through the trees and the mist to the falconry mews.

This is a long wooden building at the edge of the grounds. It looks like a barn built with stone and dark wood, and each side of the building has what looks like a long row of low screened-in porches.

Each “porch” turns out to be an enclosure for a separate bird of prey.

Seungcheol can tell that Jun is holding himself back from jogging over to press his face against the screens, his steps coming at a nearly skipping pace. He talks excitedly to the tour guide. 

“You know T.H. White? British author, _The Sword in the Stone_?” Jun says, picking his way down the grassy lawn as quickly as he can without slipping in his rubber boots. He doesn’t wait for a response. He’s on a roll, one of his speeches, “He flew hawks. It had this profound effect on him. He was obsessed. He wrote a book about it. _The Goshawk._ It’s really sad, actually. A lot of people read it as an extended metaphor for his repressed homosexuality. I don’t blame him, honestly. I can see the attraction. You have these powerful birds, right? They could be all the things he was never allowed to be; feral, ferocious. Free.”

Seungcheol glances over at Sana, who meets him halfway, rolling her eyes and suppressing a giggle.

Jeonghan trails behind the rest of them with Wonwoo, walking quietly. 

When they get to the mews and see the birds, Seungcheol does have to admit that they are pretty awe-inspiring. Big birds of prey, intimidating even under their leather hoods.

There’s a gorgeous barn owl that Sana fawns over, finally seeming livelier than she did at breakfast. Her sweet eager face manages to enchant the old man, who claims loudly that she has a “good soul” and lets the owl hop from his arm to hers and back again.

He leads the group outside to let the others see the bird fly free, but Seungcheol stays behind, wanting to get a closer look at some of the animals. A few of the birds fluff their feathers and fix their gazes on him. They really are gorgeous, their eyes flashing orange and gold in the slim rays of sunlight from the slotted wood of the door.

He walks down the narrow hallway, crouching down to get a closer look at a few of the birds. He watches them for a while, bits of the tour guide’s accented speech coming to him from across the lawn.

The door opens up again suddenly, startling him up to standing. Jeonghan steps inside with a grin like he hasn’t been ignoring Seungcheol all morning. He pulls down the hood of his dark red raincoat, running a hand through his hair. 

“Don’t tell Mr. MacGregor out there, but Korea invented falconry nine-hundred years before Ireland.”

It’s the first thing that Jeonghan has said to him all day. Seungcheol laughs, but he’s not sure what to say in response. Jeonghan doesn’t seem to mind, just wanders over to the nearest enclosure and whistles in appreciation at the biggest bird there, the goshawk. The hawk beats his wings, turning on his perch to watch Jeonghan right back, head bobbing as it tracks his movements.

“She’s amazing,” Jeonghan says with child-like wonder. Seungcheol feels like the bird on the other side of the metal screen; tethered, focus locked. He doesn’t know what part of Jeonghan to let his gaze settle on. 

“ _With_ _beauty like a tightened bow,_ ” Jeonghan quotes, moving his head and watching the bird follow. It’s the kind of pretentious thing he would have laughed at Jun for, quoting poetry in public, but Jeonghan does it with this half-ironic gravitas that makes it oddly charming.

“Is that Yeats?” Seungcheol guesses, and Jeonghan smiles, like he’s glad Seungcheol has joined him in his little joke. Seungcheol feels that old schoolboy pride at having gotten a question right. 

“ _They are not free at all,”_ Seungcheol says, pitching his voice low and dramatic, “ _They are our prisoners.”_

Jeonghan looks around at him, cocking his head with polite confusion, “What is that?”

Seungcheol just smiles, the goofy one that shows off his gums, “ _Jurassic Park._ ”

Jeonghan’s eyes go wide with surprise and he laughs, big and bright, his breath fogging in the cold air of the barn.

_I love him._

Jeonghan comes closer to him, his boots crunching against the cold dirt floor. He presses a finger to his own lips, a cautionary gesture. Seungcheol glances out the half-open door, but he doesn’t see anyone else from here. They’re alone.

Jeonghan smirks and his eyes flicker down to Seungcheol’s mouth as he closes the gap between them and kisses him. His mouth is warm, a welcome contrast to the cold air. Seungcheol’s hands go to his face automatically, reeling him in closer, kissing back, his heart pounding.

_I love him._

Jeonghan sighs into his mouth, slows the kiss and steps back. His cheeks are pink, and his eyes are dark and shining.

Sana comes back to collect them, and they go out into the light grey afternoon, but Seungcheol keeps stealing glances at Jeonghan.

Jeonghan does the opposite. For the rest of the tour, all the way through dinner and the ride home, as subtly as possible, he manages to avoid talking directly to Seungcheol more than a handful of times.

* * *

Jeonghan knocks softly on his door just after midnight.

Seungcheol’s been slowly burning all day and here Jeonghan is, standing in Seungcheol’s doorway looking sexier than anyone wearing a striped pajama set has a right to look. He opens his mouth to speak but Jeonghan just puts a finger over his own mouth, shushing him, just like he had in the barn earlier. He grins, and Seungcheol feels fucking rabid, wants to eat him whole.

He steps aside to let Jeonghan in and shuts the door.

Jeonghan flops onto Seungcheol’s still-made bed like it’s his own. He props himself up on his elbows and cocks his head with a fake-shy smile.

It turns Seungcheol on, more than he’d like to admit, the way Jeonghan had acted like everything was normal all day, the way he’d kissed him once and then turned around and shown no hint of it on his face.

There’s no slow and careful tonight. He gets one hand in Jeonghan’s hair and the other in his expensive pajama pants, jerking him slow until he’s whimpering, then coming all over Seungcheol’s fist.

Jeonghan returns the favor on his knees, and the sight of his lovely, fascinating mouth wrapped around Seungcheol’s cock is too almost too much for him to handle. He reaches a hand down to guide Jeonghan, but hesitates, ends up brushing the hair from his forehead instead, holding it back so he can see Jeonghan’s face. 

When Seungcheol comes, he collapses, boneless, back onto the mattress. Jeonghan climbs on top of him, giggling, pressing kisses to the side of his face, winding their fingers together and squeezing.

They’re lying there afterwards, before Jeonghan inevitably rolls out of bed and walks away, and Seungcheol can’t stop looking at him. His hair is still messy from Seungcheol’s hands, and his nose and cheeks are shiny with the floral moisturizer he uses. 

He’s texting someone, a small smile playing on the corners of his mouth. It hurts, seeing him like this, like pushing on a bruise. 

It falls over him, then, everything he feels for Jeonghan. It’s heavy. Rib-cracking.

He knows himself; he knows his every thought is all over his face. He knows if Jeonghan looks at him right now, he’ll see right through him.

So, he does what any reasonable adult would do; he gets up, grabs his sweatpants off the floor and hides in the bathroom. He goes through his nighttime routine slowly, extending each task for as long as he can. Part of him hopes that when he comes back out, Jeonghan will be gone. He doesn’t have any words left for today. 

He finishes brushing his teeth and shuts off the water. It’s quiet, out in the room. He opens the door and sees that Jeonghan has fallen asleep at some point in the last ten minutes. He’s on his side, one arm stretched out above him, the other folded under his head.

_Lovely. Always lovely._

Seungcheol can’t be in here.

He gets dressed as quietly as he can and slips out the door. It’s cold and damp outside, and the air feels good on Seungcheol’s burning face.

How could he be this stupid? Why the hell did he think this was a good idea? He toys with the idea of calling Jihoon, briefly. He’s basically the only person Seungcheol _could_ tell about any of this.

Telling anyone in the cohort would be a mistake, and it would put that person in a complicated position. Jihoon’s sort of the only other person in his life, other than his family, and the idea of his mom or his sisters finding out about any of this makes him sick to his stomach.

_Hi eomma, school’s going really well. Oh! Guess what, I’m sleeping with my older male professor. Love you!_

Yeah, no. He’d rather eat glass.

He even hates the idea of Chaeyoung knowing. He doesn’t want her, or anyone for that matter, to think of him as someone who would have sex with his professor for good grades, for status or publications or whatever else it is that people sleep with their professors for.

And that is what everyone will think, no matter what the real reason is. People will assume the worst. 

God, he can’t even tell Jihoon, can he? No, he can imagine it now, Jihoon’s disapproving head shake, his eyes shut, chin tilted down. He can practically hear the exhausted tone in his voice.

By the time he gets back to the hotel, his room is empty, his bed made, like Jeonghan had never been there at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/bloombloompowie) | [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/bloombloompowie)


	4. Chapter 4

Seungcheol fully expects to get in trouble with Jeonghan the next day for abandoning him in his own bed but Jeonghan doesn’t say anything at all, doesn’t treat him any differently.

Three times that day Seungcheol makes the decision to not hook up with Jeonghan again, and then goes back on it. When he’s finally, finally made up his mind to definitely _not_ do it, Seungcheol’s phone buzzes with a text from Jeonghan asking him to come over and read over an email for him.

That’s all it takes. He’s not a strong man, not when it comes to this.

“An email?” he says, opening Jeonghan’s door, which he’s left unlocked, “Really?”

“Yes,” Jeonghan says seriously, sitting up in bed on his laptop, “Come here.”

Seungcheol can’t tell if Jeonghan is fucking with him or not, but he reads over the email dutifully, tells him to send it.

“Give a minute?” Jeonghan says, eyes on his computer, “I have to finish this one thing.”

Seungcheol flops down onto the mattress, pouting. He’s got a bratty streak when he wants something that he isn’t getting, and right now he wants Jeonghan’s attention, but Jeonghan is fully focused on his phone. He pouts and places his hand casually on Jeonghan’s leg. No reaction from Jeonghan.

He gently tugs up the bottom of Jeonghan’s shirt and slips his hand underneath. Jeonghan’s skin is warm. Seungcheol loves this part of him, his little waist and his soft tummy that Seungcheol wants to sink his teeth into.

He finally gets a reaction when he traces a line from one of Jeonghan’s hipbones to the other. Jeonghan hisses, his muscles flexing. Seungcheol hides his gleeful smile in Jeonghan’s hip.

But Jeonghan still isn’t looking at him. Seungcheol can’t have that. He’s feeling greedy.

“Take your time,” Seungcheol says, his voice full of sincerity as he slips his pinky under Jeonghan’s waistband, “I’ll just be here.”

“Mm,” Jeonghan hums absentmindedly.

Touching Jeonghan is quickly moving to the top of Seungcheol’s mental list of his favorite things to do. He doesn’t know how he’s going to stop, after this trip is over.

He can worry about that later. He rubs his hand in slow circles on Jeonghan’s stomach, getting another small reaction, Jeonghan tilting his hips ever so slightly forward and pressing his warm skin against Seungcheol’s palm. Seungcheol’s heart rate picks up. He glances up at Jeonghan’s face, but he’s still got his eyes glued to his computer. As Seungcheol watches though, Jeonghan raises one eyebrow, a small smirk playing on the corner of his lips. Seungcheol flushes.

He’s never wanted anyone this badly.

He slides his hand down and cups Jeonghan’s cock through his pajama pants. Another tiny reaction, a quiet, “ _ah_ ”, high and pretty, like the noise he made when Seungcheol fucked into him for the first time. Seungcheol chuckles and Jeonghan shoves at him.

“ _Shut up_ ,” Jeonghan hisses.

“I didn’t say anything,” Seungcheol says, the picture of innocence, big puppy-dog eyes.

He can feel Jeonghan hardening under his hand. He rubs his hand over him until Jeonghan’s squirming, his hands frozen an inch above his keyboard.

“ _Fuck,”_ he says finally, shutting his laptop and tossing it aside. As soon as it’s out of the way, Seungcheol is crawling up Jeonghan’s body, pushing him down into the mattress, tugging down his pants.

Seungcheol has been pretty sure he was into guys since he was about thirteen, but he’s never really given any thought to putting another man’s dick in his mouth until now.

Now though, with Jeonghan’s pretty cock in his hand, the only thing he can think about is getting his mouth on it. He works his fist up and down and leans in and presses a kiss on Jeonghan’s hipbone. Jeonghan shudders, then grips a hand in Seungcheol’s hair. Seungcheol looks up.

“You don’t have to,” Jeonghan says, so gentle, his eyebrows furrowed.

“I want to. Please let me,” he says, kissing him again, lower this time. Jeonghan swears.

Seungcheol only kind of knows what he’s doing. He just does what he wants most, kisses the parts of Jeonghan he can’t take his eyes away from. Tries to prove to Jeonghan, or maybe to himself, that he deserves to be here.

Jeonghan’s attention is heavy on his shoulders, and he wears it proudly. Maybe that’s why he sits up, ducking his head, and says what he says. 

“Fuck me.”

He gets the reaction he was looking for, sees Jeonghan’s pupils dilate, feels the tremble in his breath. He senses the question in Jeonghan’s eyes, the curious tilt of his head.

“My ex did it once,” Seungcheol explains, that sense of pride propelling him forwards even as his heart is skipping beats, “Seulgi, she really wanted to try it. And I kind of liked it so we kept doing it.”

“Kind of?”

Seungcheol colors.

“Fine. I really liked it,” he says. He crosses his legs and fiddles with a string at the hem of his pajama pants.

“You’re _amazing_ , you know that?” Jeonghan says, and Seungcheol can’t help the pleased smile that spreads across his face. Jeonghan takes his glasses off and puts them on the side table, “Come here.”

Jeonghan offers a hand out to him and Seungcheol takes it, letting Jeonghan pull him in, stopping when they’re nose to nose. He catches Jeonghan’s mouth in a kiss, and Jeonghan slips his fingers into Seungcheol’s still-drying hair, draws himself closer, kissing deeper.

Jeonghan isn’t nearly as gentle as Seungcheol had been the first night. He’s precise and deliberate, but he rushes, doesn’t bother prepping Seungcheol enough and it _hurts_ when he pushes into him. His fingers dig into Seungcheol’s hips so hard he can feel the sharp lines of his fingernails.

Seungcheol tries to turn his head, just to catch a glimpse of the look on Jeonghan’s face. But as soon as he moves, Jeonghan takes hold of the hair on the back of his head and shoves his face down into the mattress.

It’s mean, _humiliating_ , and he must be a little fucked up because he _likes it._

Jeonghan’s so deep inside him. Seungcheol can’t see anything, can’t feel anything other than Jeonghan; his hand on his head, holding him down, his hard cock inside him, his thighs pressed hot against his own.

When Jeonghan finally releases his hair and starts moving, he is powerless to stop the noise that gets punched out of him. It’s high-pitched and embarrassing. Jeonghan stills against him and Seungcheol would give anything to turn around, to see his face, but he stays put. He wants, more than anything, to be good. He wants to be what Jeonghan wants.

He hears Jeonghan swear, quiet, under his breath, as he pulls Seungcheol’s asscheeks apart and pulls out, then pushes back in, slow and wet.

It’s almost mean, the way Jeonghan fucks him.

Seungcheol fucking loves it, feels electric. He gets a hand around himself and comes with Jeonghan still inside of him, and Jeonghan groans as Seungcheol tightens around him. He grinds himself in deeper, pressing their hips closer together, and Seungcheol whimpers, forehead against the sheets.

Jeonghan starts fucking him again before he’s caught his breath, hard and rapid, the smack of skin on skin loud in the quiet room. When Jeonghan comes, spilling into the condom, and Seungcheol feels it. He groans at the sensation, gripping the sheets, pushes his hips back in a desperate move to feel Jeonghan even further inside.

Jeonghan cleans them both off, then climbs back onto the bed next to Seungcheol with a glass of water.

“That’s exhausting,” he sighs, sweeping his hair back off of his face. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Seungcheol says sarcastically, rolling his head to the side to get a better look at Jeonghan. His whole body feels wrung out, every muscle tired and heavy. 

“You should be,” he says, taking a drink of water, then handing the glass to Seungcheol, “Next time you’re riding me.”

* * *

The rest of the trip is the same. Jeonghan works during the day, Seungcheol does touristy shit with the kids, and at night they have sex.

On their last day, it rains again and Seungcheol takes Wonwoo, Jun and Mina to the Guinness factory. The tour itself gets boring fast, and they duck out halfway through to go to the bar on the top floor, where Jun flirts his way into a whole tray of tiny samples from the cute bartender. 

By the time they’re halfway done with the tray, Mina starts to get really serious and quiet. She puts her elbows on the table, chin in her hands and sighs, lips pouting.

“Can I ask you guys for advice?”

All three boys pause at the way her voice wobbles and set their glasses down, glancing at each other. Mina doesn’t usually need advice, she’s usually the one giving it. Seungcheol counts the empty glasses in front of her. All together, they add up to about one regular-sized pint of Guinness, but Mina is small, and always gets a little emotional when she drinks. 

“Yeah, of course,” Seungcheol says, and Wonwoo nods, suddenly fascinated by the condensation on the side of his glass. Jun rolls his eyes at Seungcheol’s sincerity but nods too, gesturing at her to speak.

Mina plays with the ends of her hair.

“Sana and I kissed,” she says, frowning.

“That’s great, right?” Seungcheol says, uncertainly. They’ve been dancing around each other for so long. Seungcheol is happy for them, really. Or he would be if Mina didn’t look so grim. Jun downs another tiny glass of Guinness while Mina just stares at her hands in silence, “Or. Not great?”

“It was three days ago, but she hasn’t acknowledged it at all,” Mina says, slipping a lock of hair through her fingers repetitively, “And I’m not- I don’t- I’m not good at talking, that’s her thing. But she’s been so weird all week, even before we kissed.”

She pauses to take another drink, then continues, tucking her hair behind both ears at once, looking up at them a little more clearly,

“Seungcheol, you saw, the other night, when you watched a movie with us,” she says, looking at him hopefully. He looks at Wonwoo nervously, but Wonwoo avoids his eyes, looking out the window and squinting.

“Y-yeah,” Seungcheol says. Sana had been weird, definitely more focused on talking to him. But Mina would know better than him, anyway. And he’s afraid of encouraging Mina one way or the other. He’s not sure what Sana wants, and he doesn’t want Mina to end up hurt.

“So, what should I do?” Mina says, looking around at the three of them, who are smiling awkwardly at her. Nobody says anything for a minute, and she sighs, "I think this is why Sana keeps telling me I need more friends that aren't cis boys."

“Hold on,” Jun protests, cocking his head to the side, “She spends all her time with us, too.”

“She has her sisters,” Mina counters. Seungcheol and Wonwoo laugh at the same instant, and after a moment Mina giggles too, “Fine. She hates her sisters.”

"Sorry, Mina," Seungcheol says, "We're not very helpful."

"No," she says, reaching out and petting Jun's head. He arches up into the touch like a cat, rubbing his head against her hand, "You guys are great! So, so, great."

Her eyes fill with overwhelmed, drunk tears, and she wipes at them with her fingers, mumbling something into her hands that Seungcheol can’t hear from across the table.

“What was that?”

Mina just lets out a quiet, teary sound. Wonwoo pats her on the shoulder awkwardly.

“I think she said, ‘Sana hates me, and everything is ruined,’” Wonwoo repeats for her, and Mina nods, sniffling. 

“No!” Jun jumps in to correct her, “No way. You guys are so close. That’s not going to happen.”

Mina looks up from where she’s hidden her face in her knees and gives him a murderous, tearful look, “You don’t know that.”

“Okay, no,” Jun says, thoughtfully, “But do you know that everything will be ruined? How do you know it won’t go well?” there are a few beats of silence, “Nothing in life is certain, little Mina. We could all die tomorrow. Tell her how you feel.”

Seungcheol feels himself nodding along before he’s fully processed what Jun has said, and that it was Jun who said it.

“Wow, ” Seungcheol says, patting Jun heartily on the back, “That was really nice of you. Kind of morbid. But nice.”

“Thanks, guys,” Mina says, leaning her head on Wonwoo’s shoulder. Wonwoo tenses but doesn’t push her away. Seungcheol’s not sure he’s ever seen them touch before. It’s sweet, comforting somehow. A reminder that this, at least, is steady.

“Are you gonna talk to her?” Seungcheol asks, leaning forward in his chair.

“Y-yeah,” Mina stammers, “Just. Not yet. I don’t want to scare her off. She’s like a baby deer, emotionally.”

“We’ve got your back, no matter what,” Seungcheol says hopefully, smiling at her. She smiles tearfully back. 

They’re still the only ones in the bar, Jun gets them all another round of tiny glasses from the cute bartender, and they head out when they finish their drinks.

They're halfway to the restaurant to meet up with the others when Mina insists that she's too tired to walk. Jun jokingly tries to carry her on his back but keeps stumbling while Mina giggles. They're drawing the attention of pedestrians, so Seungcheol makes them stop and he offers up his back instead. Seungcheol lifts her easily.

At first, he's self-conscious of the way people are stepping around them with somewhat irritated confusion. He almost tells Mina to get off but then he feels her helpless giggles against his back and that makes him laugh, too.

Mina sobers up when they see Sana and Jeonghan outside the restaurant, dropping off of Seungcheol’s back and straightening up, adjusting her jacket.

Dinner is delicious, and on the university's dime, which makes it even better. Seungcheol sees what Mina was talking about, this time. Sana is definitely ignoring her.

Seungcheol almost wishes Jeonghan were ignoring him, but instead, every time their eyes meet, he’s giving him this look, dark eyes under long lashes. The more wine they have, the more Seungcheol feels himself looking back, looking again and again because every time he gets this excided jolt, deep down in his chest.

Seungcheol’s phone buzzes and he flips it over on the table without thinking, then has to snatch it up when he reads that it’s from Jeonghan.

_you’re staring_

Jeonghan shows no outward sign of having sent him anything, absorbed in conversation with Sana and Wonwoo. Seungcheol flushes. He looks around at the table, catching Mina’s eye, who looks at him curiously. He slips his phone back into his sweatshirt pocket until there’s another break in conversation and Mina’s attention is elsewhere.

He slides his phone out just enough to text back, his fingers buzzing.

_i think you like it_

Seungcheol doesn’t see how Jeonghan checks his phone without anyone noticing, but he does smile proudly into his drink when sees when the tips of Jeonghan’s ears start to turn pink.

The ghost tour they go on that night was _not_ Seungcheol’s idea. He’d tried to get out of it, told Sana it was booked, but she'd just found another one, and as always, Sana reminds him far too much of his little sisters for him to ever really deny her anything.

Sana pushes her way to the front of the tour excitedly once it starts, grabbing tightly onto Jun’s arm, dragging him with her, and Wonwoo and Mina follow close behind. Seungcheol and Jeonghan hang back, trailing along behind the group with a couple of American teenagers who won't stop vaping something that smells like synthetic grapes. 

Jeonghan's walking close enough to him that their shoulders keep brushing. They turn a corner and they can hear the tour guide waxing on about a murdered woman. He's spending a touch too long on the gory details, and it's making Seungcheol feel gross. He's not so good with scary stuff.

He's always been jumpy, ever since he was a kid. His sisters used to make fun of him for it, and he knew it drove his dad crazy, even if he'd never said anything directly about it.

His sisters always said that he was "fun to scare" and over the years Chaeyoung had come up with more and more elaborate ways to spook him. No matter how many times Chaeyoung scared him, his reaction was always the same. He just couldn't ever seem to get himself to chill out for long enough to be cool with her increasingly horrific attempts at getting him to piss his pants.

When she was in middle school, she'd stolen a prop knife from the drama department and used it to "stab" Dahyun in the chest and he'd almost passed out.

This particular situation is not even that scary. Seungcheol’s brain knows that. His fear response has never been logical. They're on a semi-crowded street with fifteen strangers and a tour guide who looks like George RR Martin. He’s not in any danger, but he’s still nervous.

He holds up pretty well until they get to the cemetery. He’s not hiding behind Jeonghan, just sort of angling his body so Jeonghan is in front of him. Jeonghan definitely notices, and he starts acting extra-protective on purpose with a smug little smile on his face, standing behind him when they’re surrounded by a bunch of creepy trees, reaching an arm out to guide Seungcheol through an old iron gate.

Seungcheol knows he’s in trouble when he sees the tour guide fiddling with some keys and a heavy chain across the entrance to a tomb. His whole body is screaming _absolutely not_ at him, but he’s not about to be the only adult man that sits out for a stop on a ghost tour.

Once they’re inside, it’s dark, and the tour guide starts telling them a horrific story about a murdered girl and Seungcheol’s skin starts to crawl. Jeonghan is to his left, and when he catches his eye, Jeonghan mouths _Boo!_ at him, and Seungcheol rolls his eyes.

He’s fine until the tour guide shuts off all the lights, and it’s so dark Seungcheol can’t see his own hand in front of his face. He makes an embarrassing sound, and everyone laughs. He even hears Jeonghan’s little chuckle, but a second later he feels familiar arms wrapping around him, feels Jeonghan’s chin on his shoulder.

Seungcheol can feel Jeonghan still shaking with laughter, but his hands are rubbing Seungcheol’s sides. It’s comforting, but also making little sparks of heat ignite under his skin.

When the lights turn back on, Jeonghan steps away.

After they get back, Seungcheol is only in his room until he’s sure he’s heard Mina and Sana’s door shut, then he’s crossing the landing in his socks, turning Jeonghan’s doorknob and smirking when he finds it unlocked.

Jeonghan doesn’t look at all surprised to see him, and Seungcheol flops down on his bed, next to his open suitcase. He grins up at Jeonghan like he belongs there.

Jeonghan is folding his clothes neatly, fastening buttons with quick fingers.

“You’re cute,” Jeonghan says distractedly, and that shouldn’t affect him as strongly as it does. 

“Mm,” Seungcheol hums, feeling warm. He’d had a pretty good day; he loved his friends. And the more he thinks about it, especially right now, with Jeonghan here in front of him, Jeonghan is his friend, too. They were friends before this, they could be friends again. They were both adults, they’d be fine, right? “How cute?”

That doesn’t mean he can’t enjoy Jeonghan’s attention right now.

Jeonghan shoots him a look that tells him he’s pushing his luck, but Seungcheol loves doing that. He lays back, stretching his arms up and yawning, exposing his stomach, letting his legs fall open.

It really is a shame that they’re going to stop doing this because Seungcheol has just started to get a handle on what Jeonghan likes. It changes, based on his mood, but Seungcheol knows enough to know that Jeonghan likes it when he looks soft, when he lays back and acts vulnerable for him.

“Do you need a ride home from the airport tomorrow?” Seungcheol asks, and Jeonghan shakes his head.

“Joshua’s picking me up and I’m staying in Boston for a few days.”

Disappointment pools in Seungcheol’s stomach. There’s a stretch of awkward silence.

“Did you need something, by the way?” Jeonghan says, zipping his suitcase shut and placing it on the floor, “Or did you just come in here to get fucked?”

The question feels like an open-handed smack to the center of his chest. He’d known he was being obvious, but to have it spelled out like that makes him reel back, stinging, wanting more. Seungcheol doesn’t answer, just blinks up at him in response, flashes his most shy, vulnerable smile, gums and teeth.

Jeonghan is maddening. He takes his time getting ready for bed before climbing into Seungcheol’s waiting lap. He brushes Seungcheol’s hair back from his forehead and says in his crisp voice,

“Your ex, the one that fucked you, did she ever eat you out?”

And Seungcheol perishes. Evaporates. He shakes his head and Jeonghan grins wolfishly.

Jeonghan makes him go shower and then makes him come with his tongue teasing at his rim and his hand around Seungcheol’s cock.

It feels so good, tears gather at the corners of Seungcheol’s eyes and Jeonghan wipes them away with a sweet laugh.

“That good, huh?”

Seungcheol just nods, his head full of cotton. He comes back to earth slowly to find Jeonghan resting his head on his chest, drawing circles with his fingers.

That feeling that sent him running away the other night threatens to overtake him again, but he fights it off. He refuses to waste the time he has left with Jeonghan. He gets up, turns them around and lays Jeonghan out on the bed instead.

Seungcheol starts slow, wants so badly to draw it out, but Jeonghan is needy, desperate, won’t let go of him, directs his head, his mouth, where it needs to be.

“We should talk about this, right?” Seungcheol asks hesitantly, when they’re lying there afterwards, bodies curved towards each other. The coil of anxiety inside him tightens.

Jeonghan sighs, adjusting his cheek on his pillow.

“I guess so,” he says, but he looks pained, somehow, “It was nice, being here,” he pauses, “With you. It was nice.”

“Oh,” Seungcheol says, surprised. Nice. _Nice_. It was nice. But what else was it supposed to be? This was what Seungcheol had agreed to, wasn’t it? He’d walked right into this situation with his eyes open and he’d known all along it would end up here, so he says it first, protects himself from having to hear Jeonghan say it, “Just friends, then?” 

Jeonghan laughs, stretching out next to him, just out of reach.

“Just friends. Friends and colleagues,” he says, his voice playful, “It’ll be the same as it was before, just, less sexual tension. Hopefully. And no chance of anyone losing their job.”

Seungcheol doesn’t say anything, so Jeonghan shakes his shoulder until he looks at him. He must see something bruised in Seungcheol’s eyes because his voice gets low and comforting.

“Hey, look,” he says, “Don’t tell anyone I said this, because I’ll deny it. But you’re my best friend.”

And Seungcheol’s heart sinks. It feels like a kind of violation of trust, suddenly, to have done this, gone this far, knowing full well that he was in love with Jeonghan and not telling him. Should he tell him now? He feels trapped in an impossible choice with no good outcome. But Jeonghan made it clear what he wants. 

“You’re my best friend, too,” Seungcheol groans, pretending the admission pains him. Jeonghan giggles, nose wrinkling.

“We’ll be fine,” Jeonghan says. He says it with such certainty, and Seungcheol so badly wants to believe him. Jeonghan yawns, “You can stay if you want to. Just set an alarm for early so you can go back to your room before the kids wake up.”

Seungcheol knows a bad idea when he sees one, knows he should go back to his own room, put a limit on the emotional damage he is actively doing to himself tonight.

But he’s tired, and in love, and so he stays.

* * *

The flight home is too long and exhausting. It’s late afternoon when they land, and Sana drives them back to Providence. When he gets home Jihoon is sitting cross legged at their small kitchen table drinking coffee and watching anime on his phone.

He looks like home, messy hair and an awkward, sharp-toothed smile. Seungcheol feels the overwhelming urge to go ruffle his hair, like he always does with Chaeyoung when he gets home from a long trip. But Jihoon would hate that, so Seungcheol just answers his questions about the trip while he unpacks his stuff in his room.

“You’re being weird,” Jihoon says from the door to Seungcheol’s room. Seungcheol jumps a little. He hadn’t heard Jihoon get up from his seat at the table, “Are you just tired or did something happen?”

Seungcheol tries to keep his face angled away from Jihoon because he knows how obvious he is, knows how bad of a liar he is. But Jihoon sees through it anyway.

“Did something happen with Jeonghan?” And Jihoon is right to ask, it’s a fair question, whenever Seungcheol is sulking, it usually has to do with Jeonghan. Still, it makes him feel naked. His pause is enough of an answer for Jihoon, who goes back into the kitchen and pauses his anime. That means business.

“Did you guys … have sex?” 

Seungcheol nods, looking out the window and fiddling with his wallet in his sweatshirt pouch. Jihoon whistles through his teeth. 

“You okay?” 

Seungcheol nods again. He's kind of too embarrassed to speak properly. Jihoon probably thinks he’s a fucking mess. What must he think of Seungcheol right now? 

Jihoon clears his throat. The two of them do their best, they really do, but there's a lot of what Chaeyoung would call _toxic masculinity_ to overcome in this apartment. And Seungcheol hasn’t processed how he’s feeling about the whole situation yet. Even if he did want to discuss it, he doesn’t know what he would say.

“There's coffee if you want some,” Jihoon offers, gesturing towards the kitchen.

“No, I’m good,” Seungcheol says, “I didn't sleep at all. I’m about to crash.” 

“You'll ruin your sleep cycle,” Jihoon says over his shoulder, walking back to his spot at the table.

* * *

Seungcheol wakes up at four-thirty the next morning, dehydrated and dizzy. He feels like he’s been asleep for two weeks. That would make more sense than what actually happened.

He stands up and his head spins.

He searches his room for. Something? Anything to prove to himself that what happened between him and Jeonghan was real and not a dream. What he finds is just his phone, the two text messages they’d exchanged on the last night.

_you’re staring_

_i think you like it._

It’s grounding, in a way. To have that reminder that he didn’t make it all up, that his memories of Jeonghan’s body next to his are memories and not a series of increasingly perverted dreams.

His first instinct is to hide from it, to hide from everyone and deal with his shit on his own, but he forces himself to reach out to the group chat and see if anyone else is awake. Wonwoo responds within five minutes, 

_Im opening u can come study if u want_

He goes to the cafe and gets there before it opens at 6:30, which means Wonwoo is in there flicking on lights in the pastry display and restocking the little dairy fridge behind the counter. He and Seungcheol just hang out for a while. Seungcheol sits down at the high countertop next to the register. Wonwoo grumbles a hello and hands him the aux cord to the cafe’s music system. Seungcheol picks something he knows he and Wonwoo will both like, some of the “indie boy trash” that Jun hates so much. 

Even after almost two years at the café, Wonwoo doesn’t do so well in the mornings. His hair is messy, and he has it pushed back off of his forehead with a headband that looks like it might belong to Mina. 

He doesn’t get much work done but it’s nice to just be around Wonwoo while he works. Wonwoo doesn’t talk to him, really, but in between customers, he fills up Seungcheol’s coffee mug, and every time a customer changes their order at the last minute, the rejected pastry ends up on Seungcheol’s end of the counter. 

Mina arrives around noon.

"Did Sana mention to anyone that she was going somewhere?” she asks, her brow furrowed, tossing her bag onto the counter next to Seungcheol, “I went by her apartment and the doorman said she wasn’t home." 

Mina lives a five-minute walk from the cafe. The walk across the river to Sana’s place was an hour round trip. Seungcheol shrugs, and Wonwoo looks vaguely apologetic.

“It’s stupid,” Mina says, getting her stuff out to work, "It’s just. We were supposed to get lunch together, I thought." 

It’s not the first time Sana has done this. She’s a chronic vanisher. She exists in the perpetual states of either “here” or “gone”. When she’s “here” it’s the best, she gives them all of her attention, listens when they talk, takes them out to brunch, laughs her genuine, bubbling laugh. But sometimes they text her and she wouldn’t respond for a few days, or she’d miss Thursday night at the grad student office and never offer up an excuse. They’d find out later she’d been with her friends from undergrad, or high school, who had just flown in from Tokyo or London and she’d _had_ to go meet them in the City.

Scheduling a deliberate date with Mina and then missing it, though. That didn’t sound like Sana. She was absent and occasionally distant, sure, but rude, she was almost never. She’s avoiding her.

“I’m sure she’s just being Sana,” Seungcheol says, “You know how she is. She’ll be back in a few days.”

Mina just shrugs, biting at the corner of her thumbnail as she gets her laptop out and starts to work. 

Seungcheol, for his part, pulls up that same blank word document from before they left, and tries to think of something new to write.

* * *

They have class on Monday and Sana still isn’t there.

Seeing Jeonghan still makes Seungcheol’s ribs ache. But he pays attention, and he contributes to the class discussion and he smiles back when Jeonghan grins at him.

He made an agreement to be friends, and that’s what he intends to do. It hurts like fuck and he has no idea how he’s going to survive the next six weeks of the semester. After that, Jeonghan will probably go stay with his parents like he did last summer, at their house in Maine, and Seungcheol will be left alone to try and miserably get over him, here in Providence.

Until then, they can be friends. And Seungcheol can do his job.

And hopefully, at some point, his schoolwork.

He has a meeting with the dean of the English department on Wednesday morning, where she essentially tells him that she likes him, but if he couldn’t meet the next deadline, she couldn’t guarantee that he had a future here.

She gives him extra time, until the end of May, about a month and a half from now, to finish two chapters of a dissertation he’s barely got an outline for.

Seungcheol knows that he’s smart, that he could just DO it, but every time he sits down to focus, he feels like his head is full of bees and he panics. He wants this, wants this degree, wants to teach and lead and help people. He just has to get over whatever roadblock he has about his dissertation. 

* * *

A few weeks later, Seungcheol has to go to an English department dinner at one of the older, tenured professor’s houses. He lives in a large old New England style mansion that takes up half a block, and he throws department parties at least once a semester.

He’d promised Jeonghan he’d go with him weeks ago, and normally, they would have shown up together, but Seungcheol still wasn’t sure how to navigate the “just friends” terrain.

He hadn’t particularly wanted to be here alone, but Sana still isn’t answering anyone’s texts and she's the only one who makes him less anxious in situations like this. Wonwoo's too shy, Jun's too flirty and a little strange in a way that leaves Seungcheol laughing uncomfortably in public whenever they have a conversation with a new person. Mina would be fine, but she's still upset over Sana, and Seungcheol doesn't want to add to her burden. 

Once he’s inside, he pours himself a glass of wine at the elegantly arranged buffet table, and he’s trying to assemble a little cheese plate for himself when he hears a voice behind him.

“I’m really glad you’re here,” he turns to see Jisung, the first year with the strange thesis that Seungcheol had met a couple times. He’s got a bright smile, and it’s the first thing Seungcheol notices when he turns around. 

“I’m in the Dean’s seminar this semester, she invited all of us but I’m the only one who showed up,” Jisung says easily.

Seungcheol can’t help but smile back, “Guess we’re in the same boat.”

“This makes us look like huge nerds, you know,” Jisung says, eating a slice of sheep’s cheese.

Seungcheol laughs. Jisung looks pleased with himself. It’s a good look on him. He and Jisung hang out by the wine, until someone comes over to get food and Seungcheol has to step out of the way and Jisung pulls him away from the center of everything, and they sit on a couch neatly upholstered with gold flowers that’s within the view of the kitchen and in front of a slowly burning fireplace.

Jisung is funny, Jisung listens and seems genuinely interested in what Seungcheol has to say as he talks about his dissertation, about Ishiguro. 

He hears Jeonghan’s laugh from the other room, and he catches a glimpse of him in the kitchen, talking to a few of the younger assistant professors. 

At a few points over the next hour, he thinks he sees Jeonghan watching him, but when he looks to check, he’s always looking the other way. It’s only when Jisung is in the bathroom that Jeonghan actually makes eye contact with him.

Seungcheol is only now aware of how close he is to the fire, can feel the red, dry heat of it through the leg of his pants, on the side of his face. The arm closest to the fireplace starts to sweat.

He does his best “everything’s fine and I’m not nervous to see you” smile and wave and Jeonghan rolls his eyes and comes to sit across from him, in an armchair on the other side of the fireplace.

“I don’t want this to be uncomfortable,” Jeonghan says quietly, and Seungcheol is only a little dry-mouthed at the sight of Jeonghan in a white collared shirt under a loose-knit sweater, elbows on his knees, leaning forward towards him in the firelight. The rings on his long fingers shine golden against the dark red of the wine in his glass.

“I’m not uncomfortable,” Seungcheol counters, leaning away from the fire to get cool air on his face, “I’m having a nice night. I think _you’re_ uncomfortable.” 

“I am not,” Jeonghan says, drinking his wine, “You’re the one who’s been avoiding me. I’m just saying hello to my favorite student.”

“Oh,” Seungcheol says, leaning forward on the couch. Half of Jeonghan’s smug, irritating face is lit by the fire, “Is that what I am?”

Jeonghan gives him one of those searching looks, like he’s scanning Seungcheol for vital information. He takes another drink. Shakes his head with a smile.

“How’s Jisung?”

It’s then that he realizes why Jeonghan’s sitting across from him,

“You’re _jealous_ ,” Seungcheol accuses with genuine surprise.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jeonghan says innocently, his big eyes wide over his wine glass. 

Seungcheol almost laughs, but he catches himself. He can’t imagine wanting anyone else when Jeonghan is in the room. But Jeonghan doesn’t need to know that.

Jisung comes back and Jeonghan stands and excuses himself politely, stepping out the door onto the back porch.

Seungcheol stares after him, then looks back at Jisung. He’s already mad at himself for what he’s about to do.

“Sorry,” he says to Jisung, getting up and nodding towards the door, “I just realized I have like a bunch more questions for Professor Yoon. He’s been busy all day and I have to teach his class in the morning. I’m so sorry.”

“Oh my gosh!” Jisung says, his eyes widening, “No worries at all!” 

Seungcheol follows Jeonghan out onto the back lawn. He’s pretty sure the door was just left unlocked for people who wanted to smoke, but there’s nobody else out there now. Just Jeonghan, who looks like he was waiting for him, standing in the chilly April night, scrolling through his phone.

Seungcheol walks over to him, and they’re just out of sight of the nearest window and the square of light that it’s casting on the grass. 

Jeonghan faces him, from a distance, looking down at his dress shoes in the wet grass. 

“I want to say something,” Jeonghan says cautiously, and Seungcheol shifts his weight, watching Jeonghan’s face carefully, “And I don’t want to sound like an asshole.”

“Just say it,” Seungcheol says, putting his hands in his pockets and shrugging, “I already know you’re an asshole.”

Jeonghan narrows his eyes at him, pouts. Seungcheol’s stomach flips. He needs Jeonghan to say out loud what he wants. He’s not going to risk misinterpreting anything, not now.

“I think I was wrong,” Jeonghan says quietly, his fingers tugging slightly on his bottom lip, “In Dublin, I think I was wrong.”

“Wrong about what?” Seungcheol says. 

“I don’t want to be just friends,” Jeonghan says, meeting his eyes, “And I know that’s not fair to you. But I thought I would suggest it. Just in case you didn’t want that either.”

Seungcheol’s mind is racing in a million different directions, his heart pounding. He speaks quickly, before he can think himself in circles and freak out, 

“That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard,” he says, and Jeonghan nods like he agrees, “And like. Not smart. Can I kiss you?”

Jeonghan laughs, despite the frown he’d just had. His eyes flick over to the door, but then he tugs his sleeves down over his palms and steps in close. Seungcheol’s hands go to his hips, automatically.

“Don’t look so smug,” Jeonghan whispers against his mouth.

Seungcheol ducks forwards and kisses him and Jeonghan kisses him back slowly. That familiar warmth spreads through him, and he chases it. He holds Jeonghan closer, pulling him in until he’s pressed against him.

There’s a loud bang to his right, someone throwing a window open above them. He jumps, and Jeonghan starts to step away, but Seungcheol holds him there.

“Can we go home?” he asks, his thumb on Jeonghan’s cheek, his bottom lip, his chin, “Take me home.”

Jeonghan shakes his head and for a moment, Seungcheol’s heart sinks, but then Jeonghan reaches into his pocket and holds up the key to his office, “Too far.”

The building is eerily quiet, but they stay away from each other as they climb the stairs. If they get caught, they can just say they needed a book from Jeonghan’s office. It helps that they’re always together anyway. Nobody would be surprised.

Once they’re inside with the door locked, Seungcheol pushes Jeonghan up against his desk and Jeonghan allows himself to be lifted up to sit on it. Seungcheol steps between Jeonghan’s spread legs and kisses him again. Jeonghan’s taller than him like this, and Seungcheol can tell that he’s enjoying that, tilting Seungcheol’s chin up so he can kiss him properly.

“You should tell me,” he kisses down Jeonghan’s neck, undoing the buttons of his dress shirt, sliding his suit jacket off of his shoulders, “How jealous you were.”

Jeonghan scoffs, pushes at the side of Seungcheol’s head, “No. Fuck off.”

Jeonghan’s chest is flushed, and Seungcheol spreads his hand out against it, pressing his thumb into the soft skin, watching it turn pale, then pink again. Jeonghan watches him in silence, his lips parted and his hair falling in his eyes.

Seungcheol gets on his knees and bathes in the look he gets from Jeonghan, heavy and possessive.

“It was that bad, huh?” he says with a mocking pout as he undoes Jeonghan’s belt. 

Seungcheol wants to know how far he has to push him before he loses his composure and just takes what he wants. He wants Jeonghan a little wild for him. He can tell that he’s close, gripping the edge of the desk so hard his knuckles are white.

“I think,” Seungcheol says, brushing his knuckles against Jeonghan’s cock through the cotton of his underwear. Jeonghan gasps, his hips bucking just slightly up off the desk, “You couldn’t stand me paying attention to someone else.”

He leans in and licks up the side of Jeonghan’s cock, pressing a kiss directly to the tip of it. Jeonghan makes a tiny noise then, a whiny gasp, and Seungcheol sits back on his heels and grins wolfishly. Jeonghan frowns at him, wrinkling his nose.

“You-you’re a _monster,_ you know that?” Jeonghan’s voice is breathless, broken.

“Just say it,” Seungcheol says, raising his eyebrows, making his eyes as wide and innocent as possible, “Please?” 

And shit, that does it. Jeonghan swears, releasing his grip on his desk and standing up, towering over Seungcheol. His gaze is dark and heavy as he grabs Seungcheol’s hair painfully, rolling his head from side to side. 

“ _Fine_ ,” he hisses, and Seungcheol can’t fucking breathe, can’t think, can’t imagine being anywhere other than here, wanting anything other than this, “I was jealous. I wanted- I wanted to take you out of there. I wanted…”

Jeonghan’s hand tightens and loosens in Seungcheol’s hair. He looks almost frantic, like he really can’t bring himself to voice what he wanted. Seungcheol takes pity on him and parts his lips, lets his tongue hang out, an offering. 

Jeonghan grips the base of his cock with the hand not tangled in Seungcheol’s hair and feeds it into Seungcheol’s mouth.

He angles Seungcheol’s head the way he needs it, and Seungcheol lets himself be manhandled, basking in the powerful glow of Jeonghan’s undivided attention. He’d live on his knees if it meant he got Jeonghan like this.

With every bob of his head, he takes Jeonghan deeper into his mouth until he can feel him in the back of his throat. He breathes in through his nose and swallows around him. Jeonghan gasps and grabs at Seungcheol’s hair, his eyes huge and dark.

Seungcheol pulls off of him and smiles hazily. He mouths at the side of his cock and winks up at him in the faux-flirty way he knows Jeonghan hates, and Jeonghan’s hand tightens in his hair. 

Jeonghan pulls him back in with a little growl that’s as adorable as it is intimidating. He starts to fuck him deeper, gagging him on his cock. The first time Seungcheol chokes, Jeonghan pulls back, but Seungcheol shakes his head.

Seungcheol opens his mouth wider, his jaw aching as Jeonghan’s thrusts get more and more erratic.

Jeonghan pulls him off roughly, Seungcheol looks up at him, all wide-eyed and as innocent as he can manage and whispers,

“ _Professor, please,”_

The effect on Jeonghan is immediate; he groans, body curving forward, hand working over his cock until he busts all over Seungcheol’s face, his parted lips, his eyelashes.

Jeonghan stands above him for a moment catching his breath, before dropping to his knees. His eyebrows are furrowed with concern, but all Seungcheol can think about is how attractive he looks, rosy-cheeked and disheveled.

“ _Fuck,_ ” Jeonghan says hurriedly, reaching back up and grabbing tissues from his desk, “I’m so sorry, Seungcheol, I don’t know why I did that, I should have asked, I’m so-“

Seungcheol grabs his wrists with shaking hands. His head is still buzzing, but he attempts a lazy smile at Jeonghan. He kisses Jeonghan’s fingertips and wonders how obvious he’s being, if Jeonghan can see how much Seungcheol loves him written all over his face.

“I’m fine,” Seungcheol says finally, clearing his throat, but Jeonghan doesn’t look convinced. He shakes his hands free and takes Seungcheol’s face in his hands.

Seungcheol closes his eyes and lets Jeonghan take care of him for a moment; running his fingers through his hair, wiping at his face.

“What made you change your mind?” Seungcheol asks when he’s done. Jeonghan stands up and crosses the room, tossing the tissue into the trash.

“I missed you,” Jeonghan says plainly, not looking in his direction. He says it like someone might say _“it’s Monday.”_ Or _“It’s snowing.”_

Irrefutable. Mundane.

“I missed you, too,” Seungcheol says, getting to his feet.

* * *

They don’t talk about the risks. They don’t have to. They both know to keep their mouths shut.

Everything goes back to the way it was before Dublin. Seungcheol does his job; answers Jeonghan’s emails, helps him with research, and grades his student’s papers. He does things that aren’t his job, too; he cooks dinner at Jeonghan’s apartment, he reads his books for class, stretched out in a patch of sun on Jeonghan’s living room floor.

And for a few weeks, it’s really nice. Nicer than Seungcheol could have hoped for. Part of him even likes the secrecy, for the protection it gives him. He still doesn’t think he’s ready to love another man in public.

In private, it’s another story. It scares him, how much he craves the moments he gets with Jeonghan. How happy he is when it’s just the two of them.

April ends and everything gets busier. Finals are approaching and the undergrads are frantic, staying up all night at the library and finally showing up to office hours.

Seungcheol finally makes some progress on his dissertation. His new deadline is approaching and he’s trying not to think about it.

And he learns what it truly feels like to want someone. He thought he’d known, these past two years even, but he was mistaken. Now that he’s actually been with Jeonghan, he can’t seem to stop wanting him. He’s never been with anyone else who made him feel like this.

Jeonghan drives him crazy, irritates him the way he always has, makes him laugh the way he always has, makes him feel safe. It’s just that now sometimes when they’re working late, Seungcheol will come sit next to the sofa where Jeonghan is sitting and rest his cheek against Jeonghan’s thigh. He likes his hair being played with, and Jeonghan obliges him. 

From what Seungcheol can tell, there are two rules to being “friends with benefits” with Jeonghan. First, no sleepovers. The one and only night Seungcheol has intentionally spent sleeping next to Jeonghan was that last night in Dublin. Second, they don’t talk about it. That part might be Seungcheol’s rule as well. He’s afraid to talk about it because he’s afraid it will all vanish out from underneath him. He’ll get over Jeonghan when he’s ready.

Right now, he wants to keep this boy who feels like home for just a little longer.

* * *

Chaeyoung video calls him one night to complain about her high school. She wants to wear a suit to prom and her school is threatening her with suspension if she tries.

“Show me!” Seungcheol says, and Chaeyoung laughs. She puts her phone down and comes back on screen a few minutes later looking appropriately suave in a tailored three-piece suit. She gives him finger-guns and he laughs.

“Dude! Chae, you look great,” he says, smiling so big his face hurts. Chaeyoung rolls her eyes.

“Don’t make a big deal,” she says, but he sees her adjusting her jacket, raising her eyebrows at her own image on the screen.

“What does mom think?” he asks, sitting down on his bed. Chaeyoung shrugs, tugging on her jacket again.

“No idea,” she says, “I think she likes it, though. She’s letting me take the truck.”

There’s a knock on her door and Chaeyoung calls out, “Come in!”

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot!” she says, grinning, “Look who’s home for the summer!”

Dahyun shuffles into the frame in a huge sweatshirt, bending at the waist and waving. Her hair is half up, half falling out of a scrunchie, and she's got her nearsighted glasses on, the ones that make her look like a little mole. She climbs onto Chaeyoung’s bed with a bowl of pretzels, which Chaeyoung immediately digs into.

“I love you guys,” Seungcheol says later, when they’re saying goodnight. Chaeyoung scrunches her nose, her head resting on Dahyun’s shoulder.

“Love youuu,” she sing-songs, sticking her tongue out between her crooked front teeth. Dahyun looks up from her own phone and gives him a closed eye smile.

“ _Loveyoutoo_ ,” she mumbles. He’ll take it.

* * *

Shit starts to catch up with him a week into May.

He has a panic attack on the third floor of the library at three in the morning. He’s had his anxiety under wraps, more or less, for the past few years. He’s overworked, and exhausted, and the muddy coffee from the twenty-four-hour library café only makes everything worse. He hides in the single stall bathroom, fingers clenched on the sides of the sink, until he can catch his breath.

Once he’s brought himself down, there’s only one place he wants to be.

Jeonghan’s awake, and he answers the door looking distracted in sweatpants and slippers. Seungcheol has felt so alone all night that just the sight of Jeonghan undoes him. He wants to wrap his arms around him, bury himself in Jeonghan.

“You okay?” Jeonghan asks, as he walks back down the hall to the library. Seungcheol leans against the wall to take his shoes off.

“Yeah,” he says with a sigh, “Just, got a little antsy in the library.”

Jeonghan giggles and it’s the nicest fucking noise Seungcheol has heard all day. He’s spent all day listening to a mix of his lo-fi study beats and his own shitty thoughts.

“I remember grad school,” Jeonghan says with a chuckle, “Sit, I’ll make us some tea.”

Seungcheol sits on the couch in the living room, rolling his head back into the cushions. 

The book Jeonghan was reading is spine-up on the coffee table, and there’s soft music playing from Jeonghan’s laptop.

He thinks about spaces, about how for a while now he thought that he was okay with only having Jeonghan in secret, but the truth is that he wants to hold Jeonghan’s hand in public, wants to go for walks in the woods with him, text him poetry that makes him think of him.

He thinks about his little sister in her tailored suit, standing up to the board of education with her friends.

He thinks a lot of dangerous, hopeful things.

Jeonghan comes back with a steaming mug of tea in one hand and a bottle of Irish whiskey in the other.

“It was my grandma’s favorite way to deal with stress,” he says, simply. As if his family is something he talks about casually.

Seungcheol wants to say, _talk to me, tell me about your grandmother. I can tell you loved her. I know you lost her. I want to hear your voice. You’re the only thing that feels real to me tonight._

What he says out loud is, “Thank you.”

Sometimes alcohol and his anxiety don’t work well together. The whiskey feels good at first, warms his chest, but then his head and face start to overheat. He gets squirmy and antsy. Jeonghan gets back to work, pulling his computer into his lap and settling down at the other end of the couch. He’s writing something that he doesn’t want Seungcheol to see. He keeps angling his computer away from him. Which is fine, obviously. It just makes Seungcheol’s nerves jump. He gets up, sits back down again.

“Stop moving,” Jeonghan says without looking up, kicking a leg out and digging his toes into Seungcheol’s thigh.

“ _Sorry_ ,” Seungcheol says, and his voice is cracked, strained. Jeonghan looks up at him with narrowed eyes.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” 

“Mhm,” Seungcheol says, biting on his top lip, pulling it into his mouth. He doesn’t know what he wants, just knows he wants this pounding in his head to go away, this ache in his chest. He’s tired of it.

Jeonghan puts his computer down on the floor and crawls towards him on the couch. He runs a hand through Seungcheol’s hair, pushing the hood of his sweatshirt down off of his head. Seungcheol leans into the touch immediately.

He doesn’t know how to ask for what he wants, for comfort without sex. For Jeonghan to hold him and tell him he loves him and that everything is going to be okay.

But Jeonghan doesn’t and it won’t and Seungcheol is so tired. He crushes Jeonghan to his chest, holds onto him, buries his face in his neck. Breathes him in. Jeonghan chuckles, but keeps playing with his hair.

The relief he feels is immediate, immense. He presses desperate, messy kisses into the side of Jeonghan’s neck. Jeonghan sighs happily, tilting his head so Seungcheol can reach all the way up to his chin, and down to his collarbone.

_I love you. God. I love you so much._

It’s not until Jeonghan stiffens in his arms that he realizes he’s said it out loud. Everything grinds to a halt.

Seungcheol raises his head and looks up at Jeonghan sheepishly, but Jeonghan has his eyes closed. 

They could pretend he hadn’t said it, but they’d both know. 

Jeonghan reaches behind him and removes Seungcheol’s hands from his sides, stands up.

“Are you upset?” Seungcheol says, small. He feels stupid, blurting it out like that after all this time, after how careful he’s been

“No,” Jeonghan says, running both hands through his hair, chin tilted up, “I’m not upset. I’m just confused. I didn’t- I didn’t think this was what that was.”

And that. That’s not fair. And not true. Is it? Seungcheol’s head pounds. 

“Don’t do that,” he pleads, his voice a desperate growl, “Don’t make this out to be nothing. You. You know we’re more than that. You know, you have to know. Jeonghan, I –“

“ _Stop_ ,” Jeonghan snaps. He honestly looks more frightened than confused, his arms crossed protectively over his stomach. 

“Why?”

“I’m still your teacher,” Jeonghan says, “This is my job. Which I could lose.”

“Oh, please,” Seungcheol says, snapping back. He’s lost a little of his patience. Why can’t Jeonghan just _understand_ , “We both know you don’t really care about that.”

“You don’t get to say that,” Jeonghan says through gritted teeth, “I _told you_ this was a mistake.”

“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think, _Professor_ ,” he says it like he’s spitting it at him. Hard and mean. It does something to Jeonghan. Hits him like a shockwave, his eyes going dark.

“Stop it,” Jeonghan says, more forceful this time. Seungcheol almost feels like he’s dealing with a feral cat, hackles raised, never turning his back, “I didn’t ask for this.”

Seungcheol feels gutted. He breathes in, deep and slow. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t say anything before because I was scared,” Seungcheol says, hands extended, palms up. Jeonghan says nothing. The line of his mouth and his jaw say: I am angry, but his eyes say: _I am afraid. Stay back_. “But. I’m- I’m tired of pretending this is just a casual thing when I’m in love with you.”

Jeonghan’s face shuts down.

Seungcheol thinks about the last time they had sex, the way Jeonghan had kissed him after, cradled his head in his hands and told him how well he’d done. There’s no trace of that now.

“What do you want me to say?” Jeonghan says, his voice cold.

“Anything?” Seungcheol’s voice cracks, “I don’t know. Please. Just, say anything.”

“Okay,” Jeonghan says, eyes hard, “We’re done.”

“What?” Seungcheol says, standing up off the couch. Jeonghan watches him but it’s like he’s seeing through him, like he’s looking at someone else entirely.

“We’re done.”

“Don’t I get a say in that?”

“No,” Jeonghan says decisively. There’s a stretch of quiet, and Jeonghan relaxes slightly. He uncrosses his arms. When he speaks again, his voice is kinder, but still firm, “You should go home, Seungcheol. I can’t be what you need right now. I’m sorry.”

“ _Fuck you_ ,” Seungcheol spits at him, broken. 

“Seungcheol,” Jeonghan says like a warning, “Get out of my house.”

Jeonghan goes into his room and closes the door quietly, leaving Seungcheol in the too-silent room by himself.

He makes it halfway home on pure fury before he crumbles. He sits down on a park bench and hides his face in his hands and he cries. 

When Seungcheol was a senior in high school, one of his classmates went missing. They found his truck by the trailhead at Jones Falls, his phone and his wallet in the glove compartment.

At first, nobody had believed he was lost. Disappearances happened, of course, but those were for tourists, people from elsewhere, hiking the Appalachian Trail. That didn't happen to people who grew up here. But as the weeks dragged on and he didn't surface at a secret girlfriend's house, or return from some impromptu solo camping trip, they'd had to admit that their forest had betrayed them.

There had been search parties called, helicopters circling their town for weeks.

They never found him.

Seungcheol thinks about that now, how someone can disappear so wholly that they leave nothing behind.

He feels the pull, the feeling of having dense forest on all sides of you, trees to hide behind, to slip between and vanish. For a moment he wants it so badly he can almost smell the pine.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this one, like most things i write, is for chloe

Seungcheol has been exhausted before, but never like this.

He considers calling his family. He considers texting Mina, texting Sana. He even briefly considers dragging himself up the spiral staircase in the living room, laying on the floor and telling Jihoon everything.

Instead he says nothing. He goes to class. It’s awful. He teaches his freshman class. That’s awful too. He starts going on runs again, because if he’s moving, he feels better.

A few days after the semester ends, he hauls himself out of bed and goes to campus to collect the mail from his mailbox. He has to pass Jeonghan’s office on the top floor to get to the alcove that houses the department’s mailroom.

The shock that he experiences when he finds the office completely empty is dulled somewhat by the expectedness of it all.

The day he had gotten back from Ireland he hadn’t believed that any of it had happened, had thought it had been a dream. He’d searched his body for marks, finding proof that he’d gotten to be with Jeonghan only when he’d opened his text messages.

He feels that again now. There’s nothing in the office except the heavy wooden desk and the bookshelf they’d bought together at Ikea, the first day they’d met. Seungcheol had assembled it right here on the floor, pieces spread out over the red patterned rug, while Jeonghan had sat on a stool and asked him questions about himself. He was supposed to be cleaning the windows, but he’d gotten distracted, sitting with the dust rag in his hand, watching Seungcheol with his bright brown eyes.

The floor creaks and Seungcheol spins around, but it’s just Mina, leaning on the doorframe and looking at him with poorly disguised pity.

"Hey, I thought I heard someone else up here," she says, "I was hoping it was you."

"Hi, um," Seungcheol says, embarrassed, "Hi."

"Are you okay?" Mina asks, "I hadn’t heard from you in a few days and I was worried. We tried calling, but…"

Seungcheol digs in his pocket, pulls out his phone. It’s dead. How long has it been dead? He shows her his phone sheepishly.

"Come on," she says, waving him down the hall, "There’s an extra charger in my desk."

In the grad student office, Mina sits down in her chair, plugging in his phone. Seungcheol paces by the windows, wiping dust from the windowsill. The building is so quiet now, without all the loud underclassmen.

"So, I’m gonna guess that you haven’t checked your email," Mina says, and Seungcheol shakes his head.

"Why?" he asks, and Mina pulls out her phone, opens her email app and hands it to him.

It’s an email from their Dean with the subtitle "Some Disappointing News." He skims it. She likes to ramble. He understands the point though. Jeonghan is leaving. Or. Jeonghan has left. He’s accepted a position as an "artist-in-residence" at a college in southern Vermont. It’s a big deal, he knows that. He recognizes the name of the college right away. Some of the best writers have worked at that same school. In Jeonghan’s place, he would have accepted the offer too.

The Dean spends the last paragraph assuring the cohort that Sana will be given a new advisor and Seungcheol will be re-assigned to work with a different professor in the department. He registers these facts with mild interest. They’ll sink in later, he’s sure.

Honestly, he’d known as soon as he’d seen the empty office. A lot of things had clicked into place, suddenly.

Jeonghan talking about his discomfort with the other professors. Jeonghan dodging phone calls. Jeonghan getting brighter and happier in Dublin, across the ocean from campus. Even that last night, Jeonghan awake at two in the morning, working on something he shielded from Seungcheol, dark circles under his eyes.

Seungcheol’s newly recharged phone chirps, and he picks it up. It’s an email of his own from Jeonghan.

His palms start to itch. Jeonghan never sends him emails because he knows the school has access to them. He hasn’t gotten a personal email from Jeonghan since two months after he met him.

_I’m sure you’ve already heard, but I wanted to make sure you got the facts straight._

_I applied to the artist-in-residence position a month ago, the day we got back from Ireland._

_I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner. I still wasn’t sure it was going to work out._

_This wasn’t the right place for me. I hope this next one is._

_Part of me was glad you weren’t in class yesterday. I wouldn’t have been able to say any of this in person. I’ve always been better in writing. I guess that’s one way you and I are different. You’re good with people._

_You’ll make a great professor someday._

It’s nothing. It’s barely a goodbye and certainly not an apology. Does Jeonghan have anything to apologize for? Seungcheol isn’t sure.

Whatever it is, it hurts. Some old survival tactic kicks in, makes Seungcheol wants to curl in on himself, protect his vulnerable parts; stomach and chest. So much of the last two years of his life has been spent growing around Jeonghan. The idea that he can just be _gone_ is almost inconceivable. It’s awful, this pain, this heavy press of grief.

Seungcheol’s hands are shaking as he sets his phone down on the desk, unlocked, so Mina can read it too. None of his careful secret-keeping matters now, he supposes. Mina looks at him carefully, then tucks her legs underneath her, settling in, picking up the phone.

_He will not cry he will not cry._ He sits down next to the big, potted plant, which doesn’t look too healthy. He doesn’t remember if he’s the one who was supposed to have been watering it, "I think I fucked up."

He stares at the floor, so he doesn’t have to look at Mina. His thoughts are moving slow, sticking together like taffy.

"Tell me what happened," Mina says, "I’m listening."

It’s like she’s said the magic words. He tells her everything, and she stays true to her word, she listens. She looks surprised, but not shocked. He tells her about Jeonghan, about Dublin and the party at the president’s house and the quiet afternoons in Jeonghan’s office.

Then he tells her about his dissertation. When he’s finished, she fixes him with a strange look, chewing on the inside of her cheek.

"Okay," she says, and he can practically see the cogs in her brain turning, "Okay. Not gonna lie, this is bad. And I can’t fix the situation with Professor Yoon. But this is what we’re going to do. How long until your deadline?"

"Three days."

He sees a flare of panic cross her face, but she tamps it down quickly.

"Okay," she repeats, "Send me everything you have."

_What?_

"No, Mina, I-"

"Wasn’t a question," she says, opening up her laptop, "I have a plan. Have you eaten today?" Seungcheol shakes his head and she continues, "Go eat something and come back here."

An hour later he comes back to find that the office is full, not unlike their Thursday night wine hangs, but instead of drinking everyone is hard at work. And, strangely, Jihoon is here.

"Hello?" Seungcheol says, blinking in the doorway. Mina lights up when she sees him, standing and handing him a sheet of paper. He glances at it, and it appears to have a schedule of the next three days, organized in neat, color-coded blocks. All he has to do is follow it, and he’ll have his chapter done by the end of the day on Friday.

It doesn’t sink in what everyone else is doing here until Mina explains.

"Here’s what’s going to happen," Mina says, her fists on her hips, pointing at each person in the room in turn, "Jun is going to grade the final papers for your underclassmen," Jun blows him a kiss from his seat on the floor, "Wonwoo and I are going to help you with research. Wonwoo’s going to assemble the most thorough bibliography you’ve ever seen."

For the second time today, Seungcheol has to beg himself not to cry.

"You-you don’t have to do this," Seungcheol says to Wonwoo, who just shrugs.

"I know," he says, going back to work.

"Mina," Seungcheol says, touching her arm gently, "This is really nice, but you seriously didn’t need to do all this, I’ll be fine."

"You’d do it for us," Mina says simply. Sana nods in agreement, "Sana is on call and ready to do any editing for you. So, you just have to get a rough draft out. And Jihoon says he’ll hang around and make sure you stay on task and take breaks."

Jihoon nods and gives him a closed-mouth smile, the one that makes the dimples

"I didn’t know you had Jihoon’s number," Seungcheol says, and Mina looks nervous.

"I, um, didn’t," she says, and Jun cuts in.

"He was with me when she called," he says, raising his hand. Seungcheol frowns.

"Why was he – oh," Seungcheol comprehends at last, raising his eyebrows at Jihoon, "That’s, uh, great!"

Jihoon groans, burying his face in his hands. Jun looks positively delighted.

* * *

Even with everyone’s help, the next few days are grueling.

But he does have to admit that it’s hard to dwell on Jeonghan when he’s so focused on his work.

It helps that he’s never alone, and he’s pretty sure Mina did that intentionally.

In the afternoon of the second day, Seungcheol and Sana are working at the café when she gets an email that has her collecting her stuff and leaving him on his own. She pats him on the shoulder distractedly as she goes, looking down at her phone. She doesn’t come back for the rest of the day, nor the day after that. But that ends up being more or less okay.

Seungcheol edits his own draft on the floor of Jihoon’s loft while Jihoon alternates between working on his music and throwing popcorn in the air and trying to catch it in his mouth.

He finishes somewhere around eight in the morning on the due date, and with Mina and Wonwoo’s help, he makes sure it’s properly cited, bibliography intact. He emails the final version to his advisor, texts the group chat _FINISHED!_ in all-caps, and then climbs into bed and falls asleep for ten hours.

The next night, at Sana’s insistence, they all gather at Mina and Wonwoo’s apartment to celebrate. It’s a nice gesture, and Seungcheol appreciates it, the opportunity to not just lay in bed and miss Jeonghan like part of him wants to. He has better things to do than that, he knows. Even though she’d been the one to arrange it, Sana shows up late, halfway through the night, already pink-cheeked from drinking wine elsewhere.

She looks nice, her makeup neat and sparkling, a gold necklace hanging at her collarbone, her hair curling into tousled-but-neat waves down her back. She’s in a ruffled white shirt that shows off her midriff when she raises her arms, and more than once, Seungcheol sees Mina staring, then cutting her eyes away sharply.

For a little while, everything is fine, Sana fitting right into their conversation, pouring herself a glass of rosé and curling up against Seungcheol’s shoulder on the couch.

She squeezes his arm when she sits down, and he can smell her delicate, floral perfume when she leans in close to whisper in his ear,

" _Hey, I’m really proud of you_."

He laughs to cover up that he’s blushing, shoving his shoulder against hers.

" _Thanks_ ," he whispers back.

Everything settles back to something close to normal for a few hours. Jun makes them all laugh so hard they can’t hold themselves up with a story about one of his roommates, a white girl named Apricot, who had brought a possum into the house as a pet and then promptly lost it in the basement.

At some point Wonwoo’s cat, Branwell, wanders out into the living room and stretches out on his back in the middle of the floor. Wonwoo adjusts his glasses and reaches out to rub his belly, making him purr like a motorboat.

Around nine, Sana starts her third glass of wine and changes the subject to Jeonghan. At the mention of his name, Seungcheol tenses and he sees Mina do the same. There’s something almost comforting, knowing it’s not just his secret to keep anymore. That Mina knows too, that he doesn’t have to hurt on his own.

_Professor Yoon_ is what Sana calls him. What she’s always called him. What they’ve all always called him. Professor. Professor. Seungcheol only calls him Jeonghan. Called him. Jeonghan. Texted it to him, shouted it once or twice from across the office, across his apartment. Whined it, begging, _Jeonghan please,_ into the side of his throat. He can count the times he’s called Jeonghan "Professor" on two fingers. And those were extenuating circumstances.

_Professor Yoon._ She says it so kindly, so full of awe, even now, even after he abandoned her, even after he left her to finish the paper they’d started together, even after he’d left her to finish her dissertation without his help.

_Professor Yoon._ It makes him sound older, wiser than Seungcheol knows he is. Makes him sound like the kind of upstanding, dependable adult that wouldn’t run away and hide in the mountains at the first sign of trouble.

"I just think it’s so nice that he’s taking time for himself, you know?" Sana says with a sigh. Seungcheol glances over at Mina, who is frowning, her face getting more and more grim with every word Sana speaks, "And in Vermont, too? I bet he’s writing amazing stuff. I always wondered, you know, if he’d start writing again. I loved his first collection so much, I’m sure you guys did, too. I’m just really happy for him."

Sana pauses in her speech to take a gulp of wine, and Mina uses the opportunity to strike. She stands up, shakily, glaring at Sana with her arms crossed,

"Are you done?"

Everyone shuts up immediately. Seungcheol considers intervening but he sees the way Mina’s hands shake. This is not about him.

"Mina?" Sana asks, confused, setting her wine glass down on the table. Mina’s never spoken to her like this. Mina’s never spoken to any of them like this.

"I’m just not in the mood to worship Professor Yoon right now," Mina says, her voice colder than Seungcheol’s ever heard it, "I’m so glad he can afford to just go wherever he wants whenever he wants. Must be nice."

Sana stiffens. This isn’t just about Jeonghan, either.

"Mina. I don’t-"

But Mina’s not done. Seungcheol and Jun stay frozen in their seats on either side of Sana, and Wonwoo just pets his cat with a stiff hand, looking intently at the floor.

"Let me finish, please," she says, her voice wavering slightly. Now that she’s started, she looks somewhat surprised at herself, as well, "I just think we should all acknowledge, as a group, that it sucks that he did this. I get that he wasn’t happy but _fuck!"_

She runs a hand through her soft dark hair, collecting it to one side and letting it fall over her shoulder. Seungcheol wants to comfort her, but he gets the sense she’s not done talking.

"We just had something really nice here, I thought," she says quietly, and Seungcheol twinges at that, "So don’t. Don’t just keep worshipping him like you did before, because I will scream. He’s just a person, Sana. And sometimes people do selfish things. They let you down."

"Mina?" Sana asks in a small voice, but Mina just stares resolutely at the coffee table’s surface, her eyes brimming with tears.

Seungcheol clears his throat, leans forward.

"Mina, do you want us to go?" he asks, focus completely on her and his voice quiet. She doesn’t look up at him either, but she nods, one quick jerk of her head.

Out on the sidewalk, Sana frets while she orders herself a cab, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.

"She’s really mad at me, isn’t she?" she asks, finally, slipping her phone into her pocket and looking expectantly at Seungcheol.

"Oh," Seungcheol starts. He doesn’t want to get in the middle of this, doesn’t want to ruin something that he still doesn’t fully understand. He wants both of them, Mina and Sana, happy, "Um, yeah, I guess so."

"Do you know why?"

"No," he says emphatically, because he doesn’t really. Only Mina knows that, "She, um, told me what happened in Ireland, that you guys kissed, but that’s it."

Sana just nods thoughtfully.

"It makes sense," she says softly. A breeze that smells like the nearby ocean dances around them, blowing at her hair, "That she’d tell you, I mean. That makes sense."

"You should talk to her," he says, "If you want to. I just think it could help."

Sana smiles sadly. Her ride pulls up to the curb, and she reaches out and squeezes Seungcheol’s forearm before she gets in the back.

"I’ll try."

The next night, he gets a text from Mina that just says " _sana and I talked"_ and then a second one a minute later that says " _bad."_

Sana’s gone for a while after that, and its only from her Instagram posts that Seungcheol knows that she’s staying in her father’s penthouse apartment in Tokyo. None of them admit it outright, but they’re all sort of miserable without her, even Jun.

Chaeyoung calls and tells Seungcheol all about her prom night, about how she'd won the argument with the school board and she and her friends had shown up in suits, taken photos, and left after ten minutes to go park down by the river and get drunk.

After she's done talking, she asks Seungcheol if something's wrong, and for the first time in what feels like years, he tells her. In the past, he's been hesitant to lean on her because he's the oldest and he's always thought that meant that he was supposed to take care of her. But she sounds excited and flattered when he asks her for advice, and suggests that he get a therapist.

Chaeyoung stays on the phone with him while he looks for counsellors nearby that take his insurance, and he picks a few to call.

Right before they hang up, Chaeyoung asks,

"Is he hot?"

"Who?"

"Your professor," she says, "Is he hot, or is he like, old and gross?"

" _Chae,_ " Seungcheol whines.

"Oh my god. Does he have a family? _Wife and kids?_ " she gasps, and if she were here, Seungcheol knows exactly what face she would be making; chin tilted down and her eyebrows raised, her hand on her hip, "I won't judge you either way, I promise."

"Oh my _god_ ," he says, and if he weren't so deeply embarrassed, he'd be smiling, "I'm hanging up now."

"Okay!" she says, "So he's _really_ old. Like. Seventy-five?"

"Just google him, for fuck's sake," Seungcheol says, "He's not old. And he's not married."

"Oooh!" Chaeyoung says, and he can hear her fingers tapping on her phone screen. Then he hears a gasp, then a rustle and the sound of her mouth being squished against her phone's microphone as she says, breathy and too loud in his ear, " _HE'S BEAUTIFUL."_

"Goodnight, Chaeyoung," he says, holding the phone away from his face.

He hangs up and collapses back onto his bed.

* * *

When Sana comes back, she tries to jump back in like nothing happened, and to Seungcheol’s surprise, Mina lets her. It’s good, having her back with them. She balances them out, fuels conversation.

And there’s still a gap. No matter who he was to all of them, Jeonghan is missed. Mina pretends she doesn’t care but Seungcheol catches her skipping one of Jeonghan’s favorite songs from the passenger seat of Jihoon's car when they’re on a grocery run outside of the city.

And even though Mina obviously wants her around, she still keeps Sana at a distance. They don’t spend time together like they used to, and whenever it’s the four of them, Mina is careful never to be left alone with her.

All throughout June, Sana does what Sana does when she can tell someone is upset with her. Instead of facing the problem head on, she tries to use money to fix it. She takes them places, orders Mina’s favorite snacks from childhood, direct from Japan. She surprises Seungcheol by paying for his family to visit, and he has to hide in the bathroom and cry for a minute the day he comes home and finds his sisters and his mom in his tiny, cramped kitchen.

It’s far too much for her to do.

He wants to tell Sana she has nothing to apologize for, not for him, that she doesn’t have to do this, but he’s grateful.

It’s not his forgiveness she wants so badly, anyway.

At the end of July, Mina is still being distant, so Sana tries something _big_. A week before, she texts the group chat and asks them all to be ready to be picked up on Saturday morning, and to bring a bathing suit. The day of, a hired car pulls up in front of Seungcheol’s house before eight in the morning. He opens the back door to find Mina and Wonwoo, looking sleepy. He gets in the middle row, and the driver pulls away from the curb.

As they cross the bridge to East Providence to pick up Jun, Seungcheol turns around in his seat with a yawn and says,

"I’m pretty sure Sana is the only person in the world that I’d get into an unmarked car for at seven-thirty in the morning."

"She’s lucky we all love her," Mina grumbles. It’s obvious she’s trying, but still not completely healed from their fight. Wonwoo chuckles.

"Seriously," he agrees. He’s got a smudge of sunscreen not quite rubbed in at his hairline, and Seungcheol, without thinking, reaches over the seat back to rub in it. It’s a mark of their friendship that Wonwoo doesn’t question it, just says,

"Thanks, man," and grins at him sleepily.

After they get Jun, the car takes them to a marina in Newport, where Sana is waiting, her hair up in an artfully messy bun. She’s practically bouncing on the balls of her feet by the time they reach her, and she leads them through the maze of metal docks excitedly.

Seungcheol can sense a vulnerable edge to her joy that tells him that if any of them were to back out of this little adventure now, it would gut her.

Sana comes to a stop at the end of a dock, and Mina gasps, unable to control her reaction.

"Sana, you _didn’t."_

"Ta-daa," Sana says, sheepishly, sweeping her arm out towards the enormous yacht docked to her right. Seungcheol doesn’t know enough about boats to judge if it’s a nice one, but it shines like it’s brand new, and it’s nose looks sharp enough to cut through waves quickly, "It’s ours until midnight. I thought. Um, I thought it might be nice for us to relax a bit."

"Holy _Shit,_ Sana," Jun says, speaking what’s on all of their minds as they stare at the boat, mouths open, eyes up to shield them from the morning sun.

"Is it too much?" Sana asks nervously, and Jun rushes forward to scoop her up into a long-limbed hug.

"No, no," he says, squishing her face against his chest, "It’s perfect."

The smile on Sana’s face is one of pure relief.

Seungcheol has to admit, the boat is nice.

The only boats he’s really been on were the fishing boats he and his friends used to take out on the lake when they were teenagers. Those were metal, rickety, and they had a motor that they filled up with a plastic gas tank and a funnel.

This boat is. Different. Bigger, for one thing. According to the captain, who apparently came with the boat rental, it is a sixty-five-foot yacht, but honestly, he could have said any number over twenty and Seungcheol would have believed him.

It’s silver, blue and white, with tan furniture built in everywhere, soft to the touch and not dark enough to get hot in the sun. It has two decks, a bar, and a below-deck area with a full kitchen and two bedrooms.

It’s a perfect summer day, cloudless blue sky, the sun beating down on Seungcheol’s shoulders and a salty wet breeze that kicks up as the boat accelerates.

Once the boat gets moving, Seungcheol climbs up to the top deck where Sana is standing by the guardrail. He leans on it next to her, bumping their shoulders together.

"You crushed it," he shouts over the sound of the motor, and Sana beams at him. It’s her real smile, the goofy one that makes her chin disappear. She’s got this overbite that she usually manages to conceal, but you can tell it’s there when she really smiles.

Seungcheol laughs, loud even over the rush of wind, and Sana smiles wider.

"It’s nice to see you so happy," Sana yells, "It’s a good look on you."

"Oh yeah?" Seungcheol says, running a hand through his hair and leaning back into the sun so it falls on his face flatteringly.

Sana shoves him playfully and they laugh, and it feels like relief.

Down below them, Mina is camped out on one of the seats, beach bag next to her and a book in her lap.

Sana nudges Seungcheol, gets on her tiptoes to be closer to his ear,

"Do you think she’s having fun?"

"Yeah!" Seungcheol says, although he honestly isn’t sure, "Totally."

Sana smiles contentedly down at her and rests her elbows on the railing again.

At noon, they dock at a small, uninhabited island near Martha’s Vineyard. Jun jumps into the water first, with Sana close behind him. The rest of them climb in carefully, and even though the sun is almost unbearably hot, the ice-cold New England water still shocks Seungcheol’s body. After the first plunge, he comes up for air with a pained yell at the freezing water, and the rest of them laugh, splashing water his way.

"How much do you think this thing cost to rent for the day?" Seungcheol asks Jun when they both climb out of the water onto the rocky shore of the island. Jun shakes his head back to get his wet hair out of his face.

"I looked it up while I was in the bathroom," he says, wiping salt water from his face and grinning at Seungcheol. He drops his voice to a whisper, "At _minimum_ she’s spending five grand on today. That’s without food and alcohol."

" _Five grand?!"_ Seungcheol whisper-screams. Jun laughs at the look of shock on his face.

"Yeah," Jun says, nodding solemnly, "Wanna help me steal the silverware later?"

They stay in the water for the rest of the afternoon. Seungcheol and Jun race to the beach and back again, and Jun surprises him by beating him a few times. For a stringy nerd, he’s a pretty decent swimmer.

When he gets tired, he climbs out of the water and reads for a bit, sitting on the swimming platform at the back of the boat with Mina, his feet dangling in the water. The pine trees on the little island provide a fitting backdrop to the book of short stories about the Canadian wilderness that he’s reading. Mina’s got a book of poetry from the library held up to her face, but she only seems to be able to pay half attention to it. The rest of the time she’s watching their friends in the water, glancing up every time she hears the ring of Sana’s laugh.

"Hey," Seungcheol asks after he catches Mina staring at Sana for the fourth time, "Are you still mad at her?"

Mina frowns, wrinkling her nose and forehead like she’s seen something distasteful. She pushes her sunglasses up onto her head.

"No," she says with a sigh, "Not really. I’m embarrassed that I yelled at her in front of everyone. And I miss her a lot. She’s my best friend, you know?"

A phantom ache twinges to the left of his breastbone.

"Yeah," he says with a fond smile, "I know. You should at least talk to her. She did all this for you."

After dinner, the five of them sit on the bottom deck and with some prodding, Mina pulls out her worn set of Bananagrams to over-enthusiastic cheers from the rest of them.

Mina wins the first three games, and then Sana goes into the kitchen and comes back with a bottle of champagne. She pops the cork with a shriek that has them all laughing and pours glasses for everyone. Mina even smiles, flashing her gums. They raise a toast to each other, champagne glasses taking the place of their usual coffee mugs.

For a moment there is only the sound of the waves slapping against the hull and the soft music playing through the boat’s speakers.

"Sana," Mina says, and everyone turns to look at her. She blushes, but pushes on, sitting down cross-legged on the cushions next to Sana, "I just wanted to say thank you. From all of us, but also, you know, me."

"Oh!" Sana says, flustered, "Of course. I just wanted us to have a nice day. I thought we’d all earned it."

"Cheers?" Mina says, tilting her glass towards Sana’s. Sana beams at her, clinking their glasses together. They keep eye contact as they drink, and then giggle, eyes crinkling at each other.

After that, they’re in their own world, Sana bumping her head against Mina’s shoulder, tears in her eyes.

"Alright boys," Seungcheol says, reaching both arms out and patting Wonwoo and Jun on the shoulders, "Swimming?"

They’re docked out of sight of the lights on the Vineyard, and definitely weren’t supposed to go swimming after dark, but Seungcheol jumps into the icy water anyway, and Jun is never one to back down from a challenge, so he follows, and Wonwoo is at heart, a pushover. The three of them surface, shouting about the cold water, splashing each other with it.

The ocean is deep here, and so dark it looks black underneath them, but it’s beautiful, too, the way light is reflected, fragmented on the surface.

Seungcheol floats on his back outside of the circle of light from the boat, and watches as stars pop into view above him. When he rights himself again, treading water, he can see Sana and Mina on the upper deck. He sees them fold in towards each other, Mina opening her arms and Sana falling into them.

They kiss like that, lit from behind like shadow-puppets, two figures sharing one outline.

He grins, shaking his head and swimming back over to Jun and Wonwoo.

The car they share back to Providence smells like sunscreen and salt. They sit on towels to protect the leather seats from their still-damp bathing suits. They drop Jun off first, but when Wonwoo and Mina’s stop comes around, Mina waves Wonwoo on, dipping her head and blushing, saying she’ll stay with Sana tonight. Sana looks at her with wonder.

Seungcheol feels good, his muscles aching from swimming, using muscles he’s not used to using to keep himself moving through the water. His cheeks burn, and he’ll probably have a light sunburn in the morning. He takes a shower and stretches out in his bed, messing around on his phone, feeling some relative sense of peace. Then his phone rings.

He answers it without thinking, because he’s already using it, and the only person that calls him on his phone is usually his mom.

It’s only after he’s pressed accept that he realizes with a jolt that it’s not his mom at all, it’s Jeonghan. His thumb hovers over the "end" button, but only for a moment, and then he presses the phone to his ear, twisting his other hand in the sheets next to him.

"Hello?"

" _Hi_."

Jeonghan’s voice almost breaks him. He scrambles up to sit, pressing the phone closer against his ear.

"How are you?" Jeonghan asks.

"I’m, I’m fine," Seungcheol says, running a hand through his hair. Why is Jeonghan acting like this is a normal phone call? _Is_ this a normal phone call? The idea that Jeonghan is a person who can just … call him on the phone feels impossible. He’s spent the last months convincing himself that that door was closed, permanently, "I just, um, I just got back from spending the day with everyone, actually. Sana _rented us a yacht._ "

"Holy shit," Jeonghan says, and Seungcheol can hear the hint of a smile in his voice, can picture it perfectly, the scrunch of his nose, the tiny chip in his front tooth, "How was that?"

"Pretty amazing, honestly," Seungcheol says, smiling reluctantly.

He realizes then that this is the first time he's ever spoken to Jeonghan without the constraints of the teacher and student relationship. They don't owe each other anything now. Which means…

Which means Jeonghan is calling him because he wanted to.

Seungcheol can hear the sounds of nighttime over the phone; crickets and frogs.

"Are you outside?" he asks.

"Yes," Jeonghan says, "I was taking a walk."

The image of Jeonghan in the wilderness tickles Seungcheol so much that he has to hold back a surprised giggle that almost escapes. He can hear the crunch of Jeonghan's footsteps now, too.

"Are you in the _woods_?"

"Everywhere that's outside up here is 'in the woods'," Jeonghan says with a huff, "But yeah, there's a trail behind my building."

"That sounds nice," Seungcheol says, "Watch out for cliffs, though."

Jeonghan laughs at that.

"And classics majors?"

"Exactly."

It's astounding, how quickly the time they've spent apart vanishes, how normal it feels to be talking to Jeonghan, even after three months of silence. He feels almost silly for thinking he'd made any progress in moving on from Jeonghan.

"These are your mountains, you know," Jeonghan says, "I looked it up the other day, just to be sure. They just call them the Green Mountains up here, but it's all the same mountain range. I can see why you love them so much."

"Oh," Seungcheol says. He feels scrubbed raw.

"Sorry," Jeonghan says uncertainly, "I've been by myself a lot. Was that too much?"

"No," Seungcheol says, his voice thick. He clears his throat, "No, I'm just a little homesick, that's all."

"I get that," Jeonghan says.

_I don't think you do._

Jeonghan sniffles like he does when his nose is cold. It must get chilly up there at night, even in the summer. Seungcheol has the insane urge to check if Jeonghan is warm enough, if he's wearing a coat.

"I wanted to ask you something," Jeonghan says, "You can say no, of course. It's completely up to you. I have a book of poetry coming out in the fall-"

"Wait," Seungcheol can't help but interrupt, "Already?"

Jeonghan laughs.

"My editors been bugging me to write for two years so when I sent him new stuff, he fast-tracked it," he says nonchalantly. He's not even bragging. Seungcheol had almost forgotten how sometimes Jeonghan's life is just like this, "Anyway. Some of them are about you. I don't mention your name. Nobody would be able to tell, but you would. And my editor said that I didn't need your permission, but I think that I do."

Seungcheol can't think of anything to say. A car drives by outside, their stereo turned up so loud that it's rattling the whole vehicle. He waits for it to pass, watches its headlights as it turns the corner and disappears, the music fading with it.

"I can send them to you first if you'd like. I know this is weird, I'm sorry."

"No," Seungcheol says finally.

"Okay. Yeah, that's fine. I totally understand-"

"No, I mean," Seungcheol swallows, squeezing his hand into a fist, "Don’t send them to me. You don't need my permission, but you have it, if that makes you feel better. I trust you. I just don't want to read them."

"Are you upset?" Jeonghan asks quietly.

"No," Seungcheol says firmly, "No, I'm not. I'm flattered, honestly. And a little surprised. But this is what I get for falling in love with my poetry professor, I guess."

"Seungcheol-" Jeonghan starts, but Seungcheol doesn't let him finish. He doesn't want whatever pity Jeonghan has for him tonight. He's not ashamed of how he feels, not anymore, he realizes. He's just not ready to be rejected again.

"I have to go. It's really okay. Thank you for asking me," Seungcheol says. He hangs up before he loses his nerve, pressing end and throwing his phone face down onto the other side of his bed.

He buries his face in his pillow and groans. This is such a Jeonghan-specific situation, so exactly the kind of thing he would do that Seungcheol is a little surprised that he hadn't been expecting it. He flits back and forth between irritation and outright fucking heartbreak, but then, just as he's falling asleep, a small voice in his head says simply,

_He wrote poetry for you._

It’s naïve, the hope that sparks to life in his chest. He tries everything he can to stamp it out, every logical reason why he should move on, but it stays.

* * *

It’s an odd feeling, waiting for the book to come out, knowing that there are poems about him in it. He still hasn’t actually decided if he’s going to read them or not, which makes Sana furious.

"I would be going _crazy_ ," she says over lunch one day, "How can you not be _dying_ to know what he wrote about you?"

"I guess I just don’t think about it as _me_ that he’s writing about?" Seungcheol says with a shrug. Sana shakes her head.

"Okay but like, _people are going to read them_ , that doesn’t bother you?" she says, then points around them with her spoon, "Like, _these people_ are going to read them."

Seungcheol looks around the dining hall. He shrugs again, smiling a little at the look on Sana’s face.

"Nobody knows it’s me though," he says, and he can’t deny that that’s the part that he kind of likes, the part that makes him want to read Jeonghan’s book, regardless of how much he knows it will hurt, "It’s not like they’re going to be picturing _me."_

Sana’s still looking at him like he’s insane, but she doesn’t question him any further.

He doesn’t end up having to decide. A few days later, he’s grading papers with Mina at his kitchen table when Jihoon comes home with the mail.

"There’s a package for you," he says, taking his coat off and hanging it on the rack by the door. Then he coughs, adding cautiously, "It feels like a book."

It’s from a publishing house in Cambridge that he’s familiar with. He’s exchanged emails with them more than once on Jeonghan’s behalf. He doesn’t open the package, just stares at it in his hands, turning it over.

"Do you want me to open it?" Mina offers, holding her hand out. Jihoon laughs when Seungcheol nods quickly, passing it to her. He’s waiting by the table, everyone leaning forward, eyes on the package.

Mina rips the envelope open, slides the book out. And there it is, just sitting on the table, pretty graphic design, simple font, Jeonghan’s name on the cover. Jihoon sucks air in through his teeth.

"Well, shit," he says, patting Seungcheol on the shoulder, "I’m going to bed. Let me know if he wrote anything good. Unless it’s like, about your asshole."

"He didn’t write a poem about my asshole, Jihoon," Seungcheol says, and Jihoon just glances at him, eyebrows raised, as he walks up the stairs. Seungcheol looks at Mina, holding the book, and she’s giving him a similar look, "He _didn’t!_ Give me that!"

He snatches the book from her hands, and she laughs. He turns it over a few times before opening it, then stops short at the dedication page.

There, in pen, in Jeonghan’s handwriting, is Seungcheol’s name, with a dash next to it. And underneath is the dedication, printed in every copy;

_these are yours, if you want them_

And that’s. Well. That’s a lot more than just "some of them are about you". The light, easy moment that they’d just had shrinks in around him. He suddenly feels very young, very small. An old, familiar ache throbs under his breastbone. He retreats inside of his hoodie, looks up at Mina.

"Do you need me to stay?" she asks gently, "Or do you want me to go?"

Seungcheol shakes his head.

"Go," he says, "I’m fine. I just need a minute."

Mina gets up, gathers her things, ruffles his hair. She hesitates for a second with her hand on his shoulder, then kisses him on the top of his head.

Seungcheol gets himself a beer from the fridge and climbs into bed with the book. Now that he has it in his hands, he can’t believe he ever considered _not_ reading it. He has to know what it says.

He reads it all in one sitting, then reads it again. Jeonghan’s writing is just as breathtaking as it always has been. Seungcheol lets himself just miss him for a moment, pure and simple like a kid.

There are quite a few poems in the collection. They’re about a lot of things, about identity, his family. Some are about sex, about queerness. And in between all of these things, is Seungcheol. It’s a strange feeling, recognizing himself in Jeonghan’s words. It’s like walking by a painting in a museum and seeing his own likeness painted into a crowd.

He feels deeply honored, to be painted so finely.

He’s crying, wiping at his nose with his sleeve, and it’s not until he finishes reading through it for the third time that he realizes why.

These poems are the last pieces of Jeonghan that had been in his future.

The first time he’d read Jeonghan’s writing, it had felt like the start of something, and this time, it feels like the end. He can’t help but take the gesture as a goodbye, an acknowledgement of what they’d had, and that Jeonghan had felt it too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/bloombloompowie)


	6. Chapter 6

ah yes, I see him.  
He is exactly  
the poem  
I wanted to write.

\- Mary Oliver

"I just feel stupid," Seungcheol says to Mina one morning in October. They're at a second-hand bookshop downtown searching for a book by an obscure Russian poet that Jun has been obsessed with recently. Jun's squatting in front of a bookshelf, peering at titles, and Mina and Seungcheol are waiting for him at the end of the aisle, "It's over, right? He's gone and I can't let him go."

"That's not stupid," Mina says, picking up a book from the display in front of them and turning it over in her hands. She’s wearing a sweatshirt under a neatly-cuffed jean jacket, and her ponytail is tucked into the back of her collar, "You loved him."

Seungcheol doesn't respond immediately, and Mina glances up from the book she's holding. It takes her four seconds of surveying his face to read what he's thinking. She puts the book back down.

"You still love him," she says, a small knowing smile tugging at her mouth.

"I didn't say that," he says, walking into the next aisle, hands in his coat pockets, "How's Sana?"

"She's perfect," Mina says, following him, "Don't change the subject. You're still in love with him."

"Shh," Seungcheol says, looking over his shoulder at her. She looks smug. She comes over to stand next to him, their arms brushing, her head coming up to his shoulder.

"Nobody can hear me, dummy," she whispers, "And besides, he's not our professor, he doesn't have to be your dirty little secret anymore. You're just two people now."

Seungcheol touches the books on the shelf, tipping one out like he's going to look at it, then letting it fall back into place. She's right and it's annoying. There's a part of him that felt comfortable with the secrecy of their relationship, because it meant he didn't have to come out to anyone other than himself and his friends.

But he's not that person anymore, not so afraid all the time. His sisters know, and he's not out publicly, but he's got this little rainbow flag that he leaves on his desk during office hours so his undergrads know his office is a safe space. It's a small thing, but it feels like a big deal to him.

"You could call him," Mina says, and anxiety zips up his spine at the mere thought. He shakes his head vehemently, and Mina laughs at him, "Or you could just keep suffering. I know you like that."

"Jesus, Mina," he says, and she grins apologetically.

"Sorry, too harsh?"

"No," he says with a sigh, moving further down the aisle, "You're right. I just think I'd die if he rejected me again, you know?"

"What if he doesn't reject you?"

"Oh, huh,” he says, slowing to a stop, “Would you tell me I was stupid if I told you that I honestly hadn't considered that?"

"I'd never call you stupid," she says, grinning, "And I don't want to get your hopes up, or anything. But he did write a book for you. I think you've got a shot."

"No," Seungcheol says quickly, shaking his head, "It wasn't _for me_. He just… mentioned me a few times."

"You keep saying that," Mina says, "And I know you know him best but that's still a really big deal, no matter how you look at it," she sighs, "I don't want to strong-arm you into calling him if you don't want to. That's your decision. I know he really hurt you. It's okay if you're still mad at him."

"I'm not," Seungcheol says, "It was a bad situation and we both made bad decisions. I knew what I was getting into and I did it anyway," he pauses, “Are you mad at him?”

Mina seems to consider this for a moment, looking at the spines of the books on the shelf in front of them. Then, she shakes her head.

“No,” she says, “I wasn’t ever mad at him on my own behalf anyway. I was mad at him for hurting Sana, and I was mad at him for hurting you, but if neither of you are angry at him, then I guess I can’t be either. It’s not like he owed me anything, not really. It was just a job. I wouldn’t have expected him to stay for any of us, if he really wasn’t happy here.”

Seungcheol’s nodding, but he’s got this lump forming in his throat. He bites the inside of his cheek, then exhales in a heavy sigh.

"I miss him a lot."

Seungcheol decidedly does not like the too-knowing smile that Mina gives him when he says that. He feels too seen and it's making him want to dig a big hole and hide in it.

"Look at you," she says sweetly, linking their arms, "Being emotionally vulnerable in public. I know you miss him. And I'm telling you you can call him, if you want to. I don't think it will go the way you're expecting it to."

"Thanks, Mina," he says, "I'll think about it."

* * *

He doesn’t think about it. He tucks the idea away in the back of his mind. That’s a problem for future Seungcheol.

Until Jeonghan decides to make it a problem for current Seungcheol.

He's in his room three days later, folding laundry to put away and listening to an audiobook version of a novel he’s assigned to his freshman. He’s read it a hundred times already, but he wants to refresh his memory before class tomorrow. He’s in the middle of matching his socks when his phone rings. He has to do a double take at the name, but he answers without hesitating.

"Hello?"

" _Hey_ ," Jeonghan's voice is still his favorite sound, after all this time, " _Are you busy?_ "

Seungcheol looks around his room, then sits down on his bed, in the middle of the laundry he was just sorting.

"No," he says blinking at his wall, "What's up? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. A little tired, I was in the car all day," Jeonghan responds. They’ve been speaking for less than thirty seconds and already Seungcheol’s pulse is skyrocketing, "Can I ask you a strange question?”

“Um,” Seungcheol says, “Sure?”

“I hope this isn’t rude, I just. I really need to know before I say anything else so I don’t sound like an idiot,” Jeonghan says, “But are you currently dating anyone?”

Seungcheol wasn’t expecting that.

“Jeonghan-” he says, a warning tone in his voice. He’s protecting himself. Of course he’s not dating anyone.

“I know. I don’t have the right to ask you that,” Jeonghan says, “And I’m sorry. If you want to tell me to fuck off right now, you can. I won’t hold it against you.”

"I’m not dating anyone," he says, carefully forming each word. He feels like he’s been dropped into the middle of a conversation and he’s scrambling to catch up. So, the same as usual, he guesses.

He wonders if this will be the rest of his life; Jeonghan calling him every few months and saying some insane thing to him and then vanishing again. He doesn’t think he’d mind all that much. It would be a way to keep Jeonghan in his life, at least.

"Okay!” Jeonghan says cheerfully, “And you’re not mad at me? I would understand if you were. I've been-, well. I’ve been really awful."

"I'm not mad at you," Seungcheol says, "Wh-"

"Hold on," Jeonghan says, interrupting him, "I have one more question, and then you can ask me anything you want.”

“Oh, um,” Seungcheol says, swallowing, “Okay. Shoot.”

“Can you come down and let me in? It's really cold."

It takes him a moment to process what Jeonghan has said, but once he does, Seungcheol doesn't bother putting shoes on, just rushes down the stairs in his socks, his heart in his throat. He opens the front door to his building with his phone still in his left hand and Jeonghan is on his porch and he's so lovely and he's _smiling_ and Seungcheol can't help but smile back.

"Can I come in?"

"Yeah, yeah, please," Seungcheol says, then internally berates himself because he sounds like an eager puppy. He holds the door open and lets Jeonghan in. Seungcheol can feel himself staring but he can’t make himself stop.

“Are you-” Seungcheol says, “Um. Do you need anything? Water? Can I take your coat?”

Jeonghan raises his eyebrows at him as if to say _really?_ Seungcheol resists the urge to stick his tongue out at him like a bratty kid. He’s just trying to be a good host.

Jeonghan unbuttons his wool coat and hands it to Seungcheol, who takes it only to realize that he doesn’t have anywhere to hang it up. Their apartment’s “coat closet” is just a row of hooks by the door, and those are all full. He stands there for a moment before folding it and hanging it over the back of his desk chair.

 _He took his coat off,_ is the only thing Seungcheol can manage to think of, _He’s staying._

“So what’s up?” Seungcheol says, lamely, when he turns around. Jeonghan in Seungcheol’s messy bedroom is striking. He's dressed like he always is, put together and perfect, but his hair is shorter, darker. It suits him, and so does the new fullness to his cheeks, the lack of dark circles under his eyes. He looks younger, healthier.

And Seungcheol is in sweatpants and an ancient t-shirt from when he was a counsellor at one of Chaeyoung's soccer camps.

Jeonghan sits down on Seungcheol’s bed like it’s his own, pushing aside a neatly stacked pile of jeans. Seungcheol just watches him, thinks about how much he seems like he belongs there, how much he’s missed him and how much he wants him to stay. Jeonghan crosses his legs and smiles.

“I’m sorry,” he says, quiet and sincere, “That’s what I wanted to say first. I’m really sorry. I hurt you.”

“Oh.”

“I didn’t want to be a person that hurt you,” Jeonghan says, “I _don’t_ want to be a person that hurts you. I was your teacher, your boss, and I shouldn’t have crossed that line. That was my responsibility, not yours.”

Seungcheol watches Jeonghan’s mouth, trying to figure out where he’s going with this. The poetry was one thing but this. Jeonghan can’t be doing all this because he’s saying goodbye, can he?

“And the worst part is that I think I knew that you were in love with me and I never said anything because I’m selfish. I wasn’t ready to love you back, but I couldn’t stand the idea of losing you. So, I kept you around-,”

“Woah. Wait a second. You _kept_ me?” Seungcheol interrupts, crossing his arms. Jeonghan looks taken aback but Seungcheol is not letting that slide, “ _No_. I kept working for you because I wanted to. And okay, yes, maybe that was because I was in love with you, but it was also because I think you’re brilliant.”

Jeonghan sizes him up curiously, his eyes sparkling.

“You’re different,” he says. Seungcheol just shrugs.

“Not really,” he responds.

_I’m still yours, if that’s what you’re asking._

“And for the record, I never saw it that way,” Seungcheol continues, “That I was your responsibility, or that you were just my professor. I’m twenty-six, not eighteen. I can make my own decisions. You never made me do anything I didn’t want. Not once.”

Jeonghan takes a slow breath. He has a couple of light freckles scattered across his cheekbones that Seungcheol hasn’t seen before. He must have spent time in the sun. He chews on his bottom lip, making eye contact with Seungcheol and flushing.

“Can you turn around for the next part?” Jeonghan asks.

“ _What_?! Why?”

“Just, please?” Jeonghan whines, “I can’t say this while you’re looking at me.”

Seungcheol rolls his eyes but he turns around, facing the door to his bedroom.

“You have excellent shoulders,” Jeonghan says from the bed behind him.

“Is that what you needed me to turn around for?” Seungcheol says, exasperated.

“No, hold on,” Jeonghan says. Seungcheol hears him get up, take a few tentative steps across the rug, “Give me a second, you know this is hard for me.”

“I literally do not,” Seungcheol protests, almost whining. He feels that terrible twist of annoyed-aroused-enamored that only Jeonghan seems to be able to evoke in him, “You still haven’t told me why you’re here.”

“Okay,” Jeonghan says and Seungcheol can tell he’s struggling to keep his voice even, “Okay. I was in the dairy aisle at the grocery store in this small town in Vermont. And they had those rolls of pre-made buttermilk biscuits that you can pop open with a fork and put in your oven. And I was standing there in the middle of the aisle like an idiot because I was looking at these fucking buiscits and all I could think about was you.”

Seungcheol covers his mouth with his fingers. Presses down on his lips to stop himself from making any noise.

“You made biscuits for me once, remember? They were the best I’d ever tasted, and you were so handsome with flour on your hands. And I was in fucking Hannafords and all I kept thinking was that these would never be as good as yours, and you weren’t ever going to cook for me again because I couldn’t see what was right in front of me.”

Seungcheol feels Jeonghan take a step closer, and can feel the heat of his body behind him, just like that night in the graveyard in Dublin. Seungcheol is itching to turn around, to see the expression on Jeonghan’s face. Jeonghan sighs and rests his forehead in the center of Seungcheol’s back, in between his shoulder blades.

“I’m in love with you,” Jeonghan says, quiet but clear.

Seungcheol turns around. Jeonghan’s eyes are wide, his arms crossed over his chest. He looks terrified. Seungcheol doesn’t even think about it, just takes him in his arms, cupping a hand around the back of his head. Jeonghan smiles at him sadly,

“Sorry it took me so long to notice.”

“It’s okay,” Seungcheol says with a shake of his head, smiling back wider, “You’re sure?”

Jeonghan nods, and Seungcheol squeezes him tighter. He knows what it means, what it took for Jeonghan to be here, to say this. But also.

“Say it again,” Seungcheol says.

Jeonghan looks up at him, his lovely almond-shaped eyes dark and shining and perfect. He drops his gaze to Seungcheol’s mouth, long lashes fanned out over his cheeks.

“I love you,” he says, his voice low, and Seungcheol kisses him.

* * *

“When I read what you wrote, I thought you were saying goodbye,” Seungcheol says, later, once he has Jeonghan in his bed, “I thought it was your way of saying you were done with me.”

Seungcheol’s laying on his side, head pillowed on his bent arm, Jeonghan curled against his chest. He runs a finger over the curve of Jeonghan’s ear with a small smile. He’s always loved Jeonghan’s ears, especially the right one, which is a slightly different shape than its companion. Jeonghan hums contentedly.

“It was supposed to be,” Jeonghan says gently, “I thought if I could write you down, I’d get you out of my head. I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

“Mm,” Seungcheol says, stroking his ear again, peach fuzz soft against his knuckles, “Now you know how I feel.”

Jeonghan looks up at him with surprise, like he’s trying to judge Seungcheol’s sincerity. Seungcheol just smiles in response, goofy and honest. Jeonghan chuckles, shaking his head.

“I missed you,” he breathes, burrowing his nose into Seungcheol’s chest, his messy hair tickling Seungcheol’s bare skin.

“I missed you too,” Seungcheol admits, kissing the top of Jeonghan’s head. Jeonghan tilts his chin up and kisses him properly, his mouth so familiar and sweet it makes Seungcheol’s head spin.

“I know this isn’t an excuse,” Jeonghan says when they break apart, “But I was a mess, when we met.”

“Because of Kai?” Seungcheol asks, brushing the hair off of Jeonghan’s forehead as he settles onto his back.

“Yeah, I think so,” Jeonghan says, frowning up at the ceiling, “Isn’t that stupid?”

“No,” Seungcheol says, honestly. Jeonghan looks back at him and a thoughtful smile spreads across his face, “What happened?”

“We broke up,” Jeonghan says simply, and Seungcheol can tell he means to end the conversation there, but he’s not about to let that happen. He nods, a gesture for Jeonghan to continue. Jeonghan rolls his eyes, but he carries on, “Fine. I don’t like to talk about it because there’s nothing to say. There was no cheating. Fuck, there was barely any fighting, even. He just…stopped. Stopped loving me, I guess. And I. I didn’t stop loving him.”

Seungcheol hums to indicate that he’s listening and continues playing with Jeonghan’s hair, stroking it back from his face, teasing the soft strands with his fingers.

“That sounds horrible,” Seungcheol murmurs. He kisses the top of Jeonghan’s head and Jeonghan makes a distracted noise of contentment that has Seungcheol smiling into his hair.

“The day we met,” Jeonghan continues, “I still remember the way he looked at me, like I was perfect. And then after that everything happened so fast. He was so excited to spend the rest of our lives together that he made me excited for it, too. I’d never even _wanted_ to get married, until I met him. But then I guess I wasn’t the person he thought I was. Or maybe I used to be, and I changed? I don’t know. But we were engaged for two years, and the whole second year, I’d wake up every morning and see just a teeny bit less of that look in his eyes. And then it was just… gone. And he was apologizing and crying and taking his ring back and I was just. Numb.”

“I took this job because my father has connections in the faculty and because it was as far away from San Francisco as I could get without leaving the country. I had been here for one day, _one day_ , and you walked into my office,” Jeonghan says, scowling at him like he’d done something wrong,“I wanted to fire you, you know?”

“What?!” Seungcheol asks, his hand pausing in Jeonghan’s hair.

“Yeah,” Jeonghan says wistfully, “But Joshua said I wasn’t allowed to fire someone just for having a crush on me.”

Seungcheol sputters indignantly, and Jeonghan hushes him with a hand on his chest.

“Don’t make a big deal out of it,” he says.

“Don’t make a big deal??!” Seungcheol squeals, “You wanted to fire me!?”

“Yeah,” Jeonghan says, brow furrowed, “But I _didn’t_.”

“And then you were so _good_ to me,” Jeonghan continues, and the look he shoots Seungcheol is more than a little accusatory, “I couldn’t get enough of you and it scared the shit out of me.”

“I was scared too,” Seungcheol murmurs, “Really scared.”

Jeonghan turns back towards him, reaches for Seungcheol, rests a comforting hand on his side.

“After my dad died,” Seungcheol starts to explain, and Jeonghan doesn’t do the strange little pity-frown that most people do when he mentions his father. Even Mina does it, sometimes, but Jeonghan never has, just looks at him, clear-eyed, and patiently waits for him to continue. Seungcheol could love him forever for that alone, “The rest of us fell apart. My mom, my sisters. It was awful. I never wanted it to be like that again. I just wanted my family to be happy, you know? I tried so hard to make us all happy again. I had this plan, I was going to become a professor and get married to a nice girl and buy my mom a new house and give her all the grandkids she wanted.”

“And then I met you,” Seungcheol says, biting at his bottom lip, “And you made me so mad! I had this plan and you- I was just trying to keep my head down and get my degree and-," he looks down at Jeonghan, patient and naked and _here_. Finally here. He breathes and quiets the butterflies in his stomach, "And then I met you and all of that didn’t feel like what I wanted anymore. Being with you felt like home. How could I walk away from that?"

Jeonghan breathes in, quick and sharp, his eyes locked on Seungcheol's face. He seems afraid again, for a moment, and then it's gone, replaced with a focused determination, a furrowing of his eyebrows as he pushes himself up onto one elbow and cradles Seungcheol's face in his hand.

"Love you so much," Seungcheol mumbles, and Jeonghan strokes his cheek, his eyebrows.

"I know," Jeonghan says, tucking some of Seungcheol's hair behind his ear, tugging on it lightly, "I can feel it. Always. So good to me."

Jeonghan kisses him, deep, winding his arms around Seungcheol’s neck, bringing their chests together.

He tugs at the hair on the back of Seungcheol’s head, insistent, and Seungcheol’s cock twitches against his thigh.

Jeonghan moans softly into his mouth. He rolls them over, his knees on either side of Seungcheol’s hips, and kisses him thoroughly. He trails his fingers down Seungcheol’s arms and gently takes hold of his wrists, carefully lifting them up and pinning them down against the sheets on either side of Seungcheol’s head. Seungcheol melts, his body loose and pliant under Jeonghan’s hands.

“Want you,” Jeonghan says between kisses, “Can I have you, sweetheart?”

Seungcheol feels like wet clay in his capable hands, would do anything he asked, would let him mold him however he wanted. Seungcheol whines shyly, nodding his head.

“Lie back against the pillows for me, okay?” Jeonghan asks and Seungcheol complies, hesitating for a second, then letting his legs fall open. He’s bathed in the soft gold light from the table lamp, and thanks to the runs he’s been going on all summer, he knows he looks good.

Jeonghan sits back on his heels, drinks in the sight of him, and when he gets up to Seungcheol’s face, he grins.

“You’re perfect,” Jeonghan says, and Seungcheol whines, embarrassed. Jeonghan’s attention is always heavy, but right now it feels like _more_ , and the full weight of it has Seungcheol trembling. Jeonghan gently spreads his legs wider, presses kisses from his knees down his thighs. Seungcheol squirms, breath catching in his chest. Jeonghan has barely started to touch him and Seungcheol is already overwhelmed. He doesn’t know how he’s going to handle Jeonghan inside of him, but Jeonghan soothes his nervous energy with a hand on his lower belly.

“You really missed me?” Seungcheol asks quietly. Jeonghan hums his assent into the delicate skin at the top of Seungcheol’s inner thigh.

“Can you- can you tell me?” Seungcheol says, taking Jeonghan’s hand in his and threading their fingers together, “Please. I missed your voice.”

Jeonghan squeezes his hand and shakes his hair back out of his face. Seungcheol thinks for a second that Jeonghan is going to say no, but then he lifts his eyes to Seungcheol’s and starts talking.

“I missed your hands,” Jeonghan says, his voice so quiet that Seungcheol almost has to strain to hear him. Jeonghan pulls Seungcheol’s hand towards him and sucks two of his fingers into his mouth. Seungcheol groans, pushes his fingers further into Jeonghan’s warm mouth, feeling the soft skin under his tongue and the blunt press of his teeth. Jeonghan pulls them out of his mouth and places Seungcheol’s hand on the back of his head, “I missed the way you touch me.”

Jeonghan’s voice is a little louder, more certain. Seungcheol’s breath is coming in fast pants, his chest rising and falling rapidly as Jeonghan’s fingers make their way up his thighs again. He presses the pads of his fingers into the meat of Seungcheol’s thigh.

“I missed your body,” Jeonghan says, coming up to nip at his stomach, “You’re so strong. Remember when you picked me up the first time? I thought about that for weeks, fucked myself on my fingers just thinking about it.”

“You’re strong, but you’re so soft, too,” Jeonghan says, his hands gentle on the curve of Seungcheol’s waist. Seungcheol shakes his head, tries to hide his face, but Jeonghan doesn’t let him, grips his chin, holds it steady while he kisses him.

"Turn over for me," Jeonghan says finally, and when Seungcheol pouts, he slides his hands down, squeezing the backs of Seungcheol's thighs, " _Please_. I missed your ass, wanna see it."

Seungcheol acquiesces cautiously, not used to being on display like this, but Jeonghan reacts like he's been given a gift. Seungcheol blushes, burying his face in his hands, as Jeonghan runs his hands over Seungcheol's thighs and up to his ass. He smacks it lightly, and Seungcheol can hear him groan.

"Is that okay?" Jeonghan asks, and Seungcheol wants to fucking melt, could just die right then and _of course_ it's okay.

"Yeah, yes," Seungcheol says and he can't help the way he cants his hips back, searching for Jeonghan's touch again. Like he has been all evening, Jeonghan is quick to oblige him.

"God you're so pretty here, wish you could see it," Jeonghan says, stroking him, pressing a sloppy kiss right above his hole. Seungcheol feels like he's melting, his muscles shaking. He's never felt this wanted, "Maybe I'll take a picture next time, so I can show you, yeah?"

And _Jesus_ , has Jeonghan always been this filthy? Seungcheol bites at his own wrist, moans into the skin on his arm.

"Did you like that?" Jeonghan asks with a chuckle, because he's trying to kill Seungcheol, apparently. He can't take any more of Jeonghan's gentle teasing, he _can’t_. Seungcheol lifts his head, swallowing to clear his throat,

"Are you gonna fuck me or not?" he complains, voice raspy.

Jeonghan hums, thoughtful and slow, tapping the pad of his thumb on Seungcheol’s hole, making the muscles jump and Seungcheol whine again, "Did you miss having me inside of you?"

" _Jeonghan_ ," Seungcheol warns, but it comes out sounding more like a plea. Jeonghan holds him open and licks, wet and hot, over his hole and Seungcheol's knees buckle. Jeonghan catches him around the middle with his other arm, holding him up off the bed. Seungcheol can feel the heat of him, the hot hard line of his cock against the meat of his ass.

"I've got you," Jeonghan says, pulling Seungcheol back up to his knees and forearms. He sucks biting kisses over Seungcheol's lower back, his thumb trailing through the wetness around his hole. It's gentle, teasing, just enough that the contact has Seungcheol's muscles spasming with every pass, "This all for me?"

Seungcheol nods, heat pooling between his thighs.

"N-nobody else," Seungcheol says, gulping air, and maybe this is something he only feels comfortable admitting because Jeonghan can't see his face, "Nobody since you. Just you."

He doesn't know if that's true for Jeonghan. He doesn't really care either, not now, when Jeonghan's here, working him open with his tongue. He slides a fingertip into him, dry, and they both groan.

"You sure?" Jeonghan asks, and Seungcheol can hear him clicking open the lube, squeezing some out onto his fingers, "It's been a long time. Nobody's been in this pretty hole?"

Seungcheol gasps, open mouthed, at the teasing praise combined with the feeling of finally having something inside of him. Jeonghan hums in understanding.

"It's okay if they have, baby."

"Uh-uh," Seungcheol says, cheeks flushing, his knees slide open a little further, giving Jeonghan easier access, "Didn't. Didn't want anybody else.”

Jeonghan pauses, and Seungcheol wants to beg him to keep going. Needs him. Needs him. There's this fucking chasm inside of him, been there since Jeonghan left, and he needs it filled. He rolls over onto his back again and tugs Jeonghan to him, kisses him with a hand fisted in the hair at the back of his neck.

“Look at you,” Jeonghan says when they break apart, petting his side as he works lubed fingers into him, scissoring him open, “Taking me so well.”

Jeonghan leans down so he’s propped up right above Seungcheol, can kiss his forehead, then the corner of his eyes where tears are gathering. Jeonghan kisses him again, on the mouth this time, searing hot.

“You feel amazing on my fingers, can’t wait to get my cock in you.”

Seungcheol can’t control the reaction his body has to that, legs falling open, his lips parting around a startled inhale. Jeonghan smiles, sweet and vicious.

“You want that?”

“ _Please_ ,” he croaks. He’s not above begging anymore, desperation clawing at him. Jeonghan kisses him again, strokes his hair.

“Okay, I’ve got you, let me just make sure you’re ready for me, okay?”

Seungcheol nods wordlessly, tilting his head up for a kiss, which Jeonghan gives willingly. He angles his fingers in deeper, making him groan, a low grumble that starts in his chest. Jeonghan does it again, and then again, until Seungcheol is a squirming, sweaty mess.

Jeonghan nuzzles at the side of his head, kisses above his ear.

“God,” he whispers into Seungcheol’s hair, “You’re gorgeous.”

He pulls his fingers out, kneels between Seungcheol’s legs, kissing his chest, across his collarbones. It's a lot. Seungcheol sucks in a deep, ragged breath.

Jeonghan chuckles, “You alright?”

“Yeah, I just- I never-,” he swallows back a sob, and Jeonghan waits patiently for him to finish, his hands gentle on Seungcheol’s hips, “Nobody’s ever been like this with me, before. It’s a lot.”

Jeonghan runs the back of his knuckles over Seungcheol’s cheekbone, looking into his eyes.

“Their loss,” he says, then smiles sadly, “My loss. You fall apart so nicely, honey. Didn’t know what I was missing.”

“Just for you,” he mumbles, and Jeonghan whines quietly, his forehead furrowing. And, _oh_. He likes that, “All for you. Show me I’m yours, please, want it- make me yours.”

“Mm,” Jeonghan hums, clever fingers tickling down Seungcheol’s rib cage. He squeezes Seungcheol’s achingly hard cock, makes him whimper, “Thought you already were?”

Seungcheol pouts, bratty, and Jeonghan relents, strokes his cock gently.

“Okay,” he says, “I can do that. All mine.”

Seungcheol thought that he had already understood what it was to love Jeonghan. Many, many months ago, Seungcheol had come to the conclusion that to love Jeonghan was to miss him. To love him and have him? Seungcheol has never felt anything like it.

Jeonghan pushes inside of him and Seungcheol scrambles for purchase on his hips, holds Jeonghan as tight to him as possible, wants him as deep as he can reach.

Jeonghan moves like the tide against him, inside him, waves rolling onto the shore.

The weight of him feels permanent in a way it never has before. It helps that he's more solid now, less weightless and bony, more soft and warm. Perfect. Grounding him like an anchor.

Seungcheol grabs Jeonghan's hips, pushes him even deeper into his body, feeling so full he can almost feel Jeonghan in the back of his throat.

Jeonghan puts his weight on one arm, looking down to see where they're connected, and hisses.

"You look so good taking me, baby, look," Jeonghan says, and Seungcheol whines, embarrassed, but Jeonghan kisses him with a smile and then tilts his chin down so he can see, too.

They do look good together, Seungcheol has to admit, Jeonghan disappearing inside of him, his rim pink and stretched. Seungcheol keens, angles his head up for more kisses. Jeonghan catches his face in his hand, kisses him and Seungcheol feels so fucking loved. He squeezes his eyes shut and more tears run down the side of his face.

Jeonghan kisses him wet and messy, sucking on his plump bottom lip and pulling it between his teeth, making Seungcheol's cock twitch, precome smearing on his stomach as Jeonghan thrusts into him.

Seungcheol, for his part, can't keep his hands away from Jeonghan, runs them all over his body, through his hair, in a way that feels deeply self-indulgent.

Jeonghan sits up on his knees, pulling a pillow down to support Seungcheol's hips, and fucks him like that, hips moving in one fluid roll as he holds his own hair back to keep it out of his eyes.

"Seungcheol, _fuck_ ," Jeonghan says, hooking his hands under Seungcheol's knees and hoisting them up, spreading his legs, driving his cock in even deeper than before, "You feel so good. Perfect for me.”

Jeonghan drops one of Seungcheol's legs and he hooks it around Jeonghan's waist, keeping him close. Jeonghan smirks at him like he knows what he's doing, but he lets himself be held in place.

"I want- Can you- Um,” Seungcheol hides his sweaty, tear-streaked face in the crook of his own elbow as he tries to find the right words to ask for what he wants, “I'm clean, can you- want you to make me yours."

Jeonghan stills inside him when he grasps his meaning, and Seungcheol worries for a second that he's finally found something that Jeonghan will deny him tonight. But then,

"You sure?" Jeonghan asks, gentle. Seungcheol nods, peeking at Jeonghan’s face from behind his arm. Jeonghan grins, kisses his back. He takes the condom off and slicks his cock up with more lube, collecting the excess on his fingers and pushing it into Seungcheol's hole with a filthy wet sound, "I'm gonna give you what you want, okay? Gonna fill you up, make you mine."

Jeonghan grips the base of his cock and slides it back inside of him. They groan together at the sensation, bare skin on bare skin, Jeonghan draped over him, breathing heavy.

Jeonghan fucks him slow at first, rocking them together as they both get used to the sensation. Then he straightens up and gets a tight grip on Seungcheol's hips, sliding out of him before thrusting back in, hard, making Seungcheol cry out. He's glad Jihoon is gone, glad he doesn't have to cover his mouth as Jeonghan fucks him, rough and fast. The sound of it is filthy, the clap of skin, the way Seungcheol's ass bounces against Jeonghan's thighs.

Seungcheol's never been vocal in bed before but he's also never been fucked like this. He can't help the cries that are forced out of him, especially when Jeonghan wraps a hand around his aching cock, lets Seungcheol fuck up into the tight ring of his fingers as he says, "Come for me."

And he does, orgasm crashing over him like a wave, come spilling out on his chest. Jeonghan thrusts into him once, twice more and then he's coming too, and Seungcheol can feel it, wet and hot and so deep inside of him, filling him.

Jeonghan pulls out, but almost immediately replaces his softening cock with his fingers again, making Seungcheols muscles jerk, too sensitive.

"Sorry, sorry," Jeonghan breathes, sliding his fingers back out, "You're so full of me, wanted to feel it."

Seungcheol can feel it too, he gets it, but if Jeonghan touches him again he's going to cry from oversensitivity, and he doesn't want to go down that road just now.

Jeonghan stretches out on the bed next to him and Seungcheol wraps an arm around him instinctively. He noses at the side of Jeonghan's head until he turns and kisses him. They kiss for a moment, tired and slow, Jeonghan's hand coming up to cup his face.

Jeonghan wetly kisses his nose, his forehead, and Seungcheol hums contentedly.

* * *

In the morning, Jeonghan wakes Seungcheol up with a kiss. He smiles sleepily, and his heart feels like it might break with happiness.

Jeonghan kisses down Seungcheol’s chest, spreads his legs and kisses the inside of his thighs. He buries his nose in the hair at the base of Seungcheol’s cock and groans,

“I missed you.”

“Mm,” Seungcheol mumbles, blinking, patting Jeonghan’s head, his brain still foggy with sleep, “I missed you too.”

“I wasn’t talking to _you_ ,” Jeonghan says.

Seungcheol’s cock twitches and Jeonghan wraps his hand around it, trails his mouth up the side of it. His eyes open and his pupils dilate in the sun. His beauty is arresting as always, but so is the messy puff of his hair, the red creases on his face from the pillow.

Seungcheol hardens in his hand and against his lips, and Jeonghan takes him into his mouth with such tenderness, Seungcheol wants to cry. He slips a hand loosely into Jeonghan's sleep-tousled hair, and fucks lazily up into his wet mouth.

Jeonghan pulls off, says,

“I love you,” with a wet, pink mouth, glazed-over eyes, and a hand on Seungcheol’s cock and it’s too much. He comes with a soft cry.

They get ready to go out for breakfast, and Seungcheol keeps taking breaks to scoop Jeonghan into his arms and kiss him, and Jeonghan laughs at him for it, but he kisses him back, every time.

Jeonghan starts to get this row of worry lines in between his eyebrows as he pulls on one of Seungcheol’s band t-shirts.

"Why aren't you mad at me?" Jeonghan asks as he carefully rolls the sleeves of the shirt over a few times. Seungcheol thinks about it for a minute, then shrugs.

"Would you like me to be?"

"No," Jeonghan says, sitting on the floor to put his socks on, "But shouldn’t you be?”

"I was angry I think, for a little while, if that makes you feel any better," Seungcheol says, reaching a hand down to help Jeonghan back up onto his feet. He pulls him up and kisses him chastely on the lips, “But it’s my decision. When to be mad, when to let it go.”

Jeonghan nods in agreement. He’s still got the wrinkles between his eyebrows. Seungcheol runs a thumb over them.

"Right. And I choose you. Easy. I'll always choose you. That's kind of how love works."

"And if you stop loving me?" Jeonghan asks, but Seungcheol is already shaking his head, smiling.

"Not gonna happen."

"How do you know that?" Jeonghan crosses his arms, standing in the middle of his room in his socks and Seungcheol’s t-shirt. Seungcheol looks at him and tells him the truth.

"Because I'm stubborn and you're _you_ and I can't imagine looking at you and not loving you."

“Okay, fine,” Jeonghan says. He wrinkles his nose, picks his black jeans up off the ground and shakes them out, pulls them on and buttons them, “but you didn't always think that. We used to fight all the time, remember?"

"Mhm," Seungcheol says, going over to his desk where he’d hastily moved all his clean laundry last night and putting his own clothes on, "Loved you then, too."

"Bullshit," Jeonghan says, turning towards him in surprise, "I was a nightmare. And I looked terrible."

"I know," Seungcheol says with a clever smirk, and Jeonghan walks over and pinches him, “ _Ow!_ Can you stop terrorizing me, please? I was about to say something nice.”

“No,” Jeonghan says, grinning brightly, “But say it anyway.”

“I’ve loved you since the moment we met and nothing you could do could change that,” Seungcheol says, resting his hands on Jeonghan’s hips, “So I’m trusting you not to hurt me again, cause I’m yours, for as long as you’d like me to be.”

“Gross,” Jeonghan says, but he’s smiling wider than Seungcheol’s ever seen him smile before, cheeks rounded and glowing.

“I know,” Seungcheol says. He turns Jeonghan in his arms so that his back is against Seungcheol’s chest and he can see the both of them in the full-length mirror on the back of his door. Jeonghan leans back against him and Seungcheol wraps his arms around him, kissing the side of his head.

“I can’t believe you wrote a whole book about how much you _loved_ me,” he whispers in Jeonghan’s ear, “That’s like, super embarrassing for you.”

“Hey!” Jeonghan squeaks, wriggling his way out of Seungcheol’s arms. Seungcheol pulls him back in and kisses him, and Jeonghan bites his bottom lip, making Seungcheol yelp. Jeonghan smirks at him devilishly and kisses him again.

* * *

It’s the second week of March and they've been switching drivers every few hours, and when they cross the state line into Pennsylvania, it's Jeonghan's turn to drive.

"You always look so sexy when you're driving," Seungcheol says from the passenger seat. It makes Jeonghan laugh a little.

"Oh, you like it when I can perform basic skills? Does that turn you on?"

"Like, yeah, kinda," Seungcheol says, letting his hand rest on Jeonghan's thigh.

"You should see me do my taxes," Jeonghan says, keeping his eyes on the road but raising an indulgent eyebrow.

"Yeah?" Seungcheol says, sliding his hand further up Jeonghan's thigh, "You do them all yourself?"

"Get off me," Jeonghan complains, picking up his hand and shoving it away from him with disgust, "You're a pervert and you're gonna get us killed."

Seungcheol giggles, not even pretending to be affronted by the accusation.

"You're not wrong," he says, and because he is who he is and he can't resist pressing Jeonghan's buttons for just a little longer, he leans in and blows in Jeonghan's ear, whispers, "Just for you though."

"Ugh!" Jeonghan squeals, bringing his shoulder up to cover his ear, "How much longer do we have?"

Seungcheol checks the maps app.

"Not too bad. Like two and a half hours," he says, "But then you have to spend all week with me. And my family."

Jeonghan cuts a quick glance at Seungcheol.

“Your mom’s going to love me, I’m very charming,” he says, “And Chaeyoung’s only been home from school since yesterday and she’s already texted me at least ten embarrassing baby photos of you.”

“Which ones?!” Seungcheol says, sitting up straight, and Jeonghan snatches his phone away from the cupholder between them before Seungcheol can reach for it.

“I’m not telling,” he says, tucking his phone under his thigh, “All I’ll say is one of them involved a concerning amount of spaghetti.”

Seungcheol groans, sinking down in his seat and covering his face with his hands.

“I should never have given her your number,” he mumbles into his palms. Jeonghan just does his little goblin cackle in response.

Jeonghan flicks on his blinker, changes lanes and shifts into fifth gear as he accelerates. Seungcheol was mostly joking about it turning him on when Jeonghan drives, but he does actually find it embarrassingly sexy that Jeonghan can drive a manual.

He can ask him later, maybe, how he learned to drive. Who taught him. He might not tell him right away, Seungcheol knows. Sometimes questions about his past make Jeonghan retreat behind his walls again, but he'll tell him eventually. Find a way to bring it up later, when he's ready to answer. Seungcheol has learned to be patient, that Jeonghan does things in his own time, that not getting an immediate response doesn't mean he won't get a response at all.

Jeonghan talks the most when they're apart, finds it easier to be vulnerable when he's falling asleep with his phone in his hand and Seungcheol is sitting up late grading papers with Jeonghan on speakerphone. Seungcheol can ask him almost anything, then, and he'll tell him, his voice sleepy and low, mumbling stories about his childhood, his summers with his grandmother, meeting Joshua at boarding school.

The last time they'd talked like that, Seungcheol had listened patiently, said goodnight with an "I love you", and Jeonghan had giggled, humming happily and wishing him sweet dreams.

Jeonghan doesn't like to say I love you when it's not his idea. Seungcheol uses it like a foundation, four corners to build a house on, says it as a greeting, kissing it into Jeonghan's forehead first thing in the morning, says it when they have sex, says it as a good night. Sometimes Jeonghan will say it back, but usually he just smiles.

Jeonghan likes to say it when Seungcheol is least expecting it; taking his hand and whispering it in his ear on the sidewalk when Seungcheol has just taken a sip of hot coffee, pulling back the shower curtain and announcing it casually while Seungcheol is shampooing his hair. He says he likes to say it when he's feeling it the most, but Seungcheol has a sneaking suspicion that part of the reason he does it is because he likes to watch Seungcheol sputter and blush. Which he still does, every goddamn time.

Maybe someday he'll be used to it, Jeonghan's easy love, but he's not there yet. It's still a surprise, warm and pleasant, every time he remembers. Oh, right. He loves me.

_He loves me._

Seungcheol’s phone buzzes and he reaches forward to grab it from the center console. It’s a text from Sana.

She and Mina are in Tokyo, staying at Sana’s father’s apartment, which Seungcheol knows because Mina has been texting him pictures of the insane rich people things she keeps finding all over the penthouse.

This text is a picture of the two of them, smiling with their cheeks pressed together. They seem truly happy.

_Good luck today! Tell Jeonghan we say hi!_

* * *

Seungcheol’s house is smaller than he remembers when they pull into his old driveway, and he feels the familiar squirm of poor kid embarrassment in his stomach as he unbuckles his seatbelt.

Seungcheol is afraid. Deep down, he’s not sure if he’ll ever stop being afraid. He doesn’t have a plan. He doesn’t know what reaction is waiting for him on the other side of his old front door. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen in an hour, a week, a year.

And oh, it’s so scary. Everything is so scary. But there is this:

Seungcheol gets out of the car, closes the door and reaches for his best friend’s hand and it is there, waiting for him, like he knew it would be.

“Ready?”

**Author's Note:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/bloombloompowie) | [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/bloombloompowie)


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